'We Want Changes, We Want Truth': Over 700 Healthcare Workers Come To Action In Minsk

A photo report.

More than 700 doctors working in various medical institutions took part in a solidarity action in Minsk against violence against peaceful demonstrators on 13 August. The first such action took place on August 12, bringing together about two hundred doctors, naviny.by reports.

People in white coats lined up along Dziarzhynsky Avenue from the side of the Belarusian State Medical University. On the other side, there are about two hundred people with flowers. Motorists passing by are honking continuously in support.

MIA officers from the bus warned the audience through sound-amplifying equipment not to go out onto the road (they did not).

Doctors are holding flowers, balloons, banners and posters "Stop the violence", "Do no harm", "Enough blood, "We are for peace", "Ambulance cars for doctors".

Several people stand with portraits of Andrei Vitushka, a resuscitator-anesthesiologist, who was detained in Minsk a few days ago with his wife Khrystsina Vitushka. She has been released, he stayed in custody.

Ivan Viktqr, a radiologist of the Republican Scientific and Practical Center for Oncology and Medical Radiology, told BelaPAN that he is concerned about the fate of Vitushka, who is "a good doctor and a person of exceptional decency."

Viktar said that the medical community is questioning whether the ambulance is used to transport the riot police, as reported on social networks.

The ambulance workers who took part in the action told the Naviny.by correspondent that they would never allow riot police to get into their car:

"We help, we carry the wounded and sick, not the riot police. We are with the people. And what you saw on social networks are not ambulance cars, they didn't even have the 103 on them. These are the medical vehicles of the security forces."

Nika Syakhovich, a resuscitator of the Minsk City Hospital # 5, who came to the action with a poster "If you tie us up today, who will save you tomorrow?", considers it important to do everything so that life in Belarus changes for the better.

However, she said, "there is a fear that in my lifetime in Belarus a doctor will not be able to provide themselves with a decent standard of living".

Doctor Mikhail Partny said that he had come to protest against the violence by the security forces. Mikhail and his mother were holding a white-red-white flag and periodically chanted: "We believe,we can, we shall win!"

"I support the demands of the national strike regarding the release of political prisoners and non-recognition of the election results," said the doctor.

His mother Sviatlana said that she "came to support her son": "We want to know what is happening in the country if the president is intimidating us so badly. Are we enslaved? Maybe we have already been sold to Russia? We are for changes, for the truth about the situation in Belarus".