Demonstrators, Police Clash in Minsk

MINSK, Belarus (International Herald Tribune) - Thousands of opposition protesters defied a government ban to stage a demonstration honoring a banned Belarussian holiday Tuesday. Many of them clashed with the riot police and dozens were detained.

Alis Belasky, head of human rights group Vesna, said that more than 100 people had been delivered to different police precincts around Minsk and that Ukrainians and Poles were among them. A Belarussian newspaper photographer was severely beaten in the scuffles, he said.

March 25 has long been a traditional day of demonstration for opposition groups, marking what they call Freedom Day: the anniversary of the 1918 declaration of the first, short-lived independent Belarussian state. President Alexander Lukashenko's authoritarian government has banned such rallies in the past, and opposition groups reported that security agents were arresting activists around the country before the demonstrations Tuesday and shutting down bus and subway stops near the Minsk square.