Police disrupt Critical Mass event in Minsk

Some cyclists were detained.

Charter97.org learnt to from reader Ivan Dub.

“One may think that the police shouldn't worry over the Critical Mass event. Young people just ride bikes in a good mood with funny innocent chants. But it wasn't so easy as we supposed. It turns out that a cyclist is considered to be an extremist in Belarus. We don't know what else the regime can do, but it was lunacy. Social parasites, unemployment, ungrounded detentions and political prisoners. And now they take on cyclists,” the reader writes.

Cyclist Stas writes on VKontakte social network that his friend was detained.

“My friend was detained. He was at a police station at 22:00 yesterday. He says he was beaten,” he writes.

Cyclists in the video complain that the road police blocked the road and didn't allow them to ride the route they planned. A part of them had to take another route.

This year's first Critical Mass in Minsk was held on March 27. The event is organised on the last Friday of every month in more than 300 cities across the world.

The aim of the campaign is to promote bicycles as a form of transport, promote a healthy lifestyle and struggle for rights of cyclists on roads.

The first Critical Mass in Minsk was held in 2009. The movement started in San Francisco in 1992.