Workers of two factories in Belarus, announced the strike Monday
Labor collectives of the plant “Belaruskali” and refinery “Naftan”, on August 16 announced that Monday, August 17, join the nationwide strike in Belarus, reported the news portal TUT.BY.
The workers demanded to release all political prisoners and participants of peaceful demonstrations, the resignation of Alexander Lukashenko, the holding of fair and transparent elections, and investigations of abuse and torture against civilians by the security forces.
“We can’t stay away from the ongoing chaos, obscurantism and terror against the civilian population. It is inconceivable that our country is suffering has been turned into a concentration camp where innocent citizens and their children thrown into prison and brutally tortured. We do not want to feed punitive pummeling us for our taxes,” reads the statement of the workers of the “Belaruskali”.
Employees of “Belaruskali” has announced to stop all mining and tunneling complexes and offices sylvinite processing plants, as well as the execution of the works in auxiliary shops.
The authors added that will join the nationwide strike from 8.00 a.m. on 17 August.
In an open letter “Naftan” refers to the lack of confidence in the current government.
“We declare that we have no confidence in the current government, as a peaceful Belarusians do not feel safe in their own country. Belarusians afraid to go outside, afraid to Express their position, afraid to make and defend their choice,” said working group “Naftan”.
The strike at the refinery will take place daily from 12.00 to 15.00 at the premises of the Central entrance. In the case of non-compliance employees “Naftan” has threatened to halt the process in running workshops and productions.
President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko said that, if you do not stop the strike at the enterprises of the Republic will not be able to “roll out” their production, and foreign competitors, this situation would be beneficial.
In Belarus the staff of the largest companies are protesting against presidential election results. In the protests involved workers of the Belarusian automobile plant, Minsk automobile plant, enterprise “Keramin”, “Grodno-Azot”. The protest also left the staff of the Belarusian enterprises on production of building materials “Keramin”.
The protest began employees of companies “Dolphin”, “Belkard”, “Minsk tractor plant”, Belarusian state Philharmonic society, the National art Museum of Belarus.
From the 4th to the 8th of August took place in Belarus early voting for presidential elections and the August 9th primary. For President ran five candidates. On 14 August, the CEC announced the final results of presidential elections. According to official figures, won by Lukashenko, who voted for 80.1% of the voters. Second place with 10.1% of votes were opposition candidate Svetlana Tikhanovski. The other candidates received less than 2%. At the same time, alternative exit polls showed the opposite pattern – a landslide victory Tikhanovski.
Elections were held in Belarus without independent international observers. After the polls closed on 9 August in several cities the protests began, which lasts to the present day. The stock joined the labor collectives of the largest Belarusian enterprises. Protesters accuse the authorities of rigging the election. To disperse the protesters, security forces used non-lethal weapons, in particular in Minsk they used stun grenades, rubber bullets and water cannons.
During the protests, was detained about 7 thousand demonstrators (according to official data, more than 2 thousand of them already released), hundreds were injured and wounded.
