“Stop Petrol” protest rally on the day of fuel price rise

On the day of petrol price rise activists of Stop Petrol campaign are organizing a motor rally along the streets of Belarusian cities.

The rally is to be held in a new format, which excludes the possibility of pressure by the State Automobile Directorate.

On June 7 starting from 7 p.m. participants of the rally in a dispersed manner are to gather in the streets adjacent Independence Avenue in Minsk, from the Institute of Culture to the Main Post Office and from the National Library to Tolbukhin Street.

At about 7.20 p.m. all of them together are to go to the Independence Avenue, and at 7.30 p.m. the columns are to meet, to attach white ribbons to aerials of their cars, to paste stickers, to switch on emergency stop signalling and move in a low speed, gradually assembling in one column. The emergency stop signals are to be a sign for those who are gathering together.

The both columns are gathering in the road section from Yakub Kolas Street to the circus, where the participants are to stop when the first cars coming from the opposite direction will arrive. The participants will stop in different lines of traffic, open hoods, boots, take out empty canisters and carry out a 15-minute “repair works” of their cars, which allegedly cannot move or which had run out of petrol. “In such a way we will paralyze the main street, the adjacent streets and put across out message about our discontent over the current situation, the fuel price rise and decrease of our standards of living,” the organizers of the rally stated.

“In case the State Automobile Directorate will block the avenue or the streets nearby and the ways to the avenue, our rally would achieve its goal – everyone would know why and what for the avenue had been blocked. Thus, the actions of the State Automobile Directorate which would be aimed at blocking the road, would agree with the form of our protest and help us to implement it,” the address to the motorists reads.

The protest has an exclusively peaceful nature.