Belarus blocks more than 50 news websites amid large protests over presidential election

Authorities in Belarus have blocked more than 50 news media websites reporting on how the country has been shaken by two weeks of protests demanding that authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko resign after 26 years in power.

The Belarusian Association of Journalists reported the shutdowns on Saturday, including sites for the U.S.-funded Radio Liberty and Belsat, a Polish-funded satellite TV channel focusing on neighbouring Belarus.

On Friday, the state publishing house stopped printing two top independent newspapers, the Narodnaya Volya and Komsomolskaya Pravda, citing an equipment malfunction.

Protests unprecedented in Belarus for their size and duration broke out after the Aug. 9 presidential election, which election officials say handed Lukashenko a sixth term in office in a landslide. Protesters allege the official results are fraudulent and are calling for Lukashenko to resign.

Police responded harshly in the first days of the protests, arresting some 7,000 people and beating many of them. But the police crackdown only widened the scope of the protests, and anti-government strikes have been called at some of the country's main factories, former bases of support for Lukashenko.

Some police officers have posted videos of themselves burning their uniforms and quitting.

In an enormous show of defiance, an estimated 200,000 protesters rallied on Aug. 16 in the capital, Minsk. Lukashenko's main election challenger, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, has called for another massive show of opposition at a protest on Sunday.

"We are closer than ever to our dream," she said in a video message from Lithuania, where she took refuge after the election. Some previous presidential challengers in Belarus have been jailed for years.

Tsikhanouskaya will meet U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun in Lithuania on Monday as part of efforts to defuse the crisis over disputed elections.

The No. 2 U.S. diplomat will stop over in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius en route to Moscow as Washington seeks a peaceful resolution to the crisis that would avert Russian intervention.

Public shows of support for Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus with an iron fist since 1994, have been comparatively modest. A pro-government rally in Minsk on Aug. 16 attracted about a quarter as many people as the protest march. On Saturday, only about 25 people showed up for a bicycle ride to show support for the president.

Also on Saturday, hundreds of women dressed in white formed a chain in Minsk as a sign of protest, and a larger demonstration was expected in the evening.

"Threats, intimidation, blocking no longer work. Hundreds of thousands of Belarusians are telling him 'go away" from all corners and squares," said Anna Skuratovich, one of the women in the chain.

Protesters say they are fed up with the country's declining living standards and have been angered at Lukashenko's dismissal of the coronavirus pandemic.

Lukashenko alleges that the protests are inspired by Western forces, including the United States, and that NATO is deploying forces near Belarus's western border. The alliance firmly denies that claim.

Lukashenko renewed the allegation on Saturday during a visit to a military exercise in the Grodno region, near the borders of Poland and Lithuania.

"You see that they are already dragging an `alternative president' here," he said, referring to Tikhanovskaya. "Military support is evident — the movement of NATO troops to the borders."

Lukashenko later spoke at a rally of several thousand supporters in Grodno, where he threatened to close factories that are on strike as of Monday. Strikes have hit some of the country's major companies, including vehicle and fertilizer manufacturers, a potential blow to the largely state-controlled economy.

Authorities on Friday threatened demonstrators with criminal charges in a bid to stop the protests. Investigators also summoned several opposition activists for questioning as part of a criminal probe into a council they created with the goal of co-ordinating a transition of power for the former Soviet republic of 9.5 million.