Alexander Kozulin was calling on unlawful actions resorting to the use of force during an assembly on March 25 in Minsk, the interior ministry of Belarus said in a statement received by BelTA.
According to the interior ministry, on March 25, at 12 p.m. a group of the opposition adherents made another attempt to get into the Oktyabrskaya Square to hold an unauthorized assembly. About 2,5 thousand people, many of whom were just strolling around taking a rest, gathered near the McDonald’s restaurant (Nezavisimosti Avenue, 23).
The militia officers promptly started to explain the people that unlawful actions were inadmissible, the interior ministry said. After the explanatory activities had failed to bring positive results, the gathering was pressed back. “The actions of the interior officers were highly professional. Their actions, under the consequences, were correct; no use was made of either physical force or special means”, the statement ran.
The dispersed groups of opposition followers directed towards the Yanka Kupala Park where they held an unauthorized assembly. In his statement Alexander Kozulin urged the gathered people to go to the special reception center to release people who had been arrested before on charges of partaking in unsanctioned rallies.
At 4:10 p.m. near the railway bridge, the Dzerzhynskogo Avenue, the rally was stopped by the interior officers. The officers tried to explain that actions of the members of the rally were unlawful but Alexander Kozulin who headed the column “engaged into an open conflict with the interior officers and purposefully, out of hooligan intentions, smashed the interior officers’ video camera”.
Most ardent activists of the unauthorized rally including Alexander Kozulin were detained by special militia officers.
According to the interior ministry, an investigation is underway to give a legal treatment of the actions of the participants of the rallies.
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