FAZ: Calmness Is Merely Facade In Belarus

More people than expected came out to Minsk streets to protest.

The newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung published its political observer Reinhard Veser’s commentary regarding Belarusian protests against the presidential decree on "parasites", Deutsche Welle reports.

"Belarus has been extremely quiet over recent years – since Aliaksandr Lukashenka started to establish the authoritarian regime in the country more than 20 years ago. The reason for this state of affairs lies not only in repressions, but also in the fear of a repetition of the Ukrainian scenario in the country: the fear, that the ruling regime toppling could serve as a pretext for Moscow to interfere in the internal affairs of Belarus. Lukashenka himself played this card: he repeatedly spoke about threats to the independence and called himself its guarantor.

The fact that people come out to the streets of Minsk again, is the sign that calmness is merely a facade in Belarus. There were more demonstrators than it was expected.