Belarus’s foreign ministry said it handed a protest note on Tuesday over the plans to commemorate the vote, which it says Alexander Lukashenko won by an overwhelming majority, a result the democratic opposition did not recognize.
Minsk called the organizers and participants representatives of the Belarusian diaspora “known for destructive and provocative actions,” saying the march and conference were designed “to harm the Republic of Belarus” and to “justify illegal sanctions and aggressive actions against our country.”
“Such hostile actions do not contribute to restoring normal dialogue and directly harm Belarusian-Polish relations,” ministry spokesman Ruslan Varanok said in a statement. He added the ministry would “closely monitor the situation,” reserving the right to take unspecified “necessary countermeasures” in case of provocative actions.
The March of Freedom is scheduled to start at 3 p.m. on Saturday at Józef Piłsudski Square in Warsaw, with the “New Belarus” conference planned at the University of Warsaw on Saturday and Sunday. Both are linked to the August 9, 2020 election, officially won by Lukashenko, a 70-year-old who has held the presidency continuously since 1994, when Belarus held its first presidential election.
The office of Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the opposition candidate in 2020, called the events an opportunity “to once again remind ourselves and the world that every day we fight for a free and democratic country.”
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Source: PAP