MINSK: Street protests against a tax on adults who are not in full-time work spread from Belarus's capital Minsk to other towns on Sunday, local media reported. Around 2,000 people took to the streets of Gomel, Belarus's second city, the independent news agency tut.by reported, and hundreds more marched in other cities.

Start the conversation, or Read more at Channelnewsasia.com. </s> MINSK (Reuters) - Street protests against a tax on adults who are not in full-time work spread from Belarus’s capital Minsk to other towns on Sunday, local media reported.

Around 2,000 people took to the streets of Gomel, Belarus’s second city, the independent news agency tut.by reported, and hundreds more marched in other cities.

The new tax, enshrined in a decree on preventing social dependency, widely known as the “Law against social parasites”, requires those who declare less than 183 days of work per year to pay $250 in compensation for lost taxes - more than half an average monthly salary.

On Friday, about 2,000 people demonstrated in Minsk, one of the largest protests of recent years under the authoritarian rule of President Alexander Lukashenko.

The protests were unauthorized but appeared to be tolerated by the authorities.

Belarus has been in recession since 2015 due to a slump in oil prices and contagion from an economic downturn in neighbouring Russia, where many Belarussians work in order to send money home.

Tax authorities say around 470,000 people are liable for the tax, but fewer than 10 percent have paid, generating just $6 million in extra revenue for the government. </s> Hundreds of demonstrators marched in the Belarusian city of Gomel to protest a law against “social parasitism.”

The February 19 protest included people of all ages and passed without incident despite not having been approved in advance by the authorities.

On February 17, about 2,000 people protested in the capital, Minsk, many of them carrying placards attacking authoritarian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka.

About 60,000 people have signed a petition opposing the law, which requires people who were employed fewer than 183 days in a calendar year to pay a tax of about $200 to combat what Lukashenka calls “social parasitism.”

The law exempts registered job-seekers, homemakers, subsistence farmers, and those working in Russia. Officials say only about 10 percent of the 430,000 Belarusians affected by the law have paid the tax so far.

The deadline for compliance is February 20.

With reporting by AFP, Reuters, and Interfax </s> In most democracies, a two-thousand strong protest would be regarded as small. In Belarus, where strongman Alexander Lukashenko has been in power since 1994, it is far from ordinary. Even more unusual, the authorities appeared to tolerate the protest. Protesters in several Belarusian cities took to the streets to protest against the introduction of a new law taxing the unemployed. Two thousand people demonstrated in the capital Minsk alone. A further 2000 came out in Gomel, Belarus' second city near the Russian border. Hundreds others marched in other cities. It was the largest protest since the 2010 anti-government demonstrations, which led to mass arrests, a bloody crackdown and the isolation of the regime. It comes at a tense time for the Belarusian authorities, engaged in open clashes with their closest ally, Russia. Widely known as the “Law Against Social Parasites,” the presidential decree would require Belarusians out of work for over 183 days per year to pay $250 to the state. This is equivalent to more than half of the average monthly salary. Belarusian tax authorities say around 470,000 people would be obliged to pay the tax. Fewer that 10 percent have already paid it.

“This might look like a small protest from the outside, but they are actually really big for us,” says Belarusian political analyst Viktor Karbalevich. Belarusian authorities have defended the tax as a way of paying for free education. But the fact that it hits the poorest in society has not squared well with many. Belarus is in its third year of a serious economic recession, provoked by a slump in oil prices and the knock-on effect of neighbouring Russia's worsening economic problems. Most Belarusians are feeling Moscow's recession: many have relatives working in Russia and sending less cash back home. Although Belarus' economic downturn has been ongoing for some time, there has been no clear indicator of social discontent until now. State propaganda has been showing events in Ukraine as a warning to Belarusians: protests could lead to a Maidan-type situation, so it’s best to choose the path of stability and stick with Lukashenko.



But, three years on from the Ukrainian revolution, the argument is losing its appeal. Unemployment is rising fast and government propaganda looks increasingly helpless. People are being laid off en mass; poverty and homelessness has risen sharply. Many Belarusians are also employed unofficially, which possibly makes them liable for the tax too. "The demonstrators think the state should help them through the tough times rather than make them pay more,” says Karbalevich.

All of this has put Belarusian authorities in a tight spot. On the one hand, Lukashenko cannot suppress these protests like he has done in the past — and he seems to recognize this. Minsk is trying to normalize relations with the West and demonstrate, particularly to Brussels, that it is able to liberalize. “Repressions would be very bad in terms of relations with Europe,” says Belarusian political scientist Alexander Klaskovsky. Even if authorities wanted to lock up demonstrators, it would backfire domestically. Previous anti-government protests were mainly staged by the political opposition. Then, it was easy for the police to round them up and throw them in prison. But cracking down on ordinary citizens is much riskier and would inevitably provoke more protests. Although the protests have empowered Belarus' opposition movement — with many of its leaders recently amnestied from prison, like Mikola Statkevich, taking part — it has not played a leading role in the protests. Banners like “Lukashenko Leave” and “Zhivee Belarus” (an opposition slogan) were few and far between. The reasonable solution for Lukashenko would be to bin the decree, says Karbalevich. “It is stupid and nobody needs it,” he says. The financial benefit to government is minimal, and a large part of the state apparatus is now forced to work on its implementation. But for Lukashenko, psychologically, taking a step back is impossible. Lukashenko is facing crisis of falling living standards and growing social discontent. 

 “That is dangerous for a man who says he controls everything,” says Karbalevich. </s> Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The BBC filmed the beatings as protesters were arrested

Police in Belarus have arrested hundreds of people during protests against a so-called "social parasites" tax on the under-employed.

Thousands defied a ban to protest, taking to the streets of Minsk and other cities. Demonstrators shouted "Fascists!" at riot police.

There have been weeks of sporadic protests against a $230 (£185) levy on those unemployed for six months.

President Alexander Lukashenko insists the tax will not be scrapped.

He says it instils discipline in the workshy, though he has suspended it for this year.

Opponents say it punishes those who cannot find a job.

Image copyright AP Image caption President Lukashenko has run Belarus since 1994

'Beating the participants'

Organisers called the protest Freedom Day, evoking the independent Belarus that lasted just six months after the First World War, in 1918.

The march in the capital Minsk took place on the 99th anniversary of the proclamation of the Belarusian People's Republic.

Demonstrators tried to march down one of the major streets in Minsk, but were blocked by police who began arresting them, along with journalists covering the protest.

Image copyright EPA

"They're beating the participants, dragging women by the hair to buses. I was able to run to a nearby courtyard," demonstrator Alexander Ponomarev told AP news agency.

Earlier, police raided the offices of human rights group Vesna and detained about 30 activists. The authorities had already jailed more than 100 opposition supporters for terms of between three and 15 days in the lead-up to the demonstration, reports said.

At the scene, by Sergey Kozlovsky, BBC Russian Service, Minsk

It seemed like the whole city was in a state of emergency - police everywhere, a lot of police trucks, water cannons, cars with equipment for storming barricades.

We heard that people who were unable to get to the first meeting place, the Science Academy metro station, gathered in another place - Yakub Kolas square. There we saw a crowd with white-red-white flags, which are a symbol of opposition in Belarus. The crowd was around 1,000-1,500 strong.

We started filming there. People shouted "long live Belarus". Very soon riot police appeared. In a couple of minutes police blocked the whole street from both sides. Protesters were surrounded.

Several police trucks were sent in and arrests started. Riot police started to detain literally everyone, even some journalists and old people were detained. Those who were trying to resist were beaten.

Earlier this month Mr Lukashenko said people who worked fewer than 183 days a year would not have to pay the tax this year and said those who had already paid it last year would be compensated if they found a job.

According to a recent tax inspection, 470,000 people should have paid the tax but only 50,000 had done so, Reuters news agency said.

Image copyright EPA Image caption Protesters and journalists covering the demonstration in Minsk were arrested

Image copyright AP Image caption Police were out in force on the streets of Minsk

Image copyright Reuters Image caption This was one of the largest protests in Belarus for several years

Mr Lukashenko has run Belarus - a country where little dissent is tolerated - since 1994.

He has been described by some Western officials as "Europe's last dictator".

However, Mr Lukashenko has recently been seeking to improve ties with the West and lessen the country's dependence on Russia. </s> MOSCOW — News media in Belarus are reporting sizable protests in five cities against an unpopular law that obliges citizens to pay the equivalent of $250 if they work less than half the year and do not register with state exchanges.

The protests Sunday were an unusually widespread expression of discontent in the authoritarian former Soviet republic. They focused on the 2-year-old "anti-sponging" law, but demonstrators also expressed dissatisfaction with the government of President Alexander Lukashenko.

Lukashenko has been in office since 1994.

News portals said thousands of people protested in Gomel, Belarus' second-largest city. Smaller demonstrations were held in four other cities. No arrests were reported, although police frequently crack down on unsanctioned rallies.

A protest in Minsk on Friday drew about 2,500 in the biggest opposition action since 2011. </s> Popularly known as the "tax on social parasites" it slaps a levy of $250 on those who work less than 183 days per year. Those officially registered unemployed are exempt but must do community service for $10 per month.

The latest protests were in provincial towns. On Sunday, at least 600 people joined a rally in Babruysk, 1,000 in Orsha and hundreds in Brest and Rogachev. On Saturday hundreds protested in Pinsk and on Friday 1,000 took to the streets in Molodechno.

Protests of this scale are rare in the former Soviet republic, run since 1994 by President Alexander Lukashenko, who has described himself as the "last dictator in Europe".

Many protesters were middle-aged and elderly people who complained there was no work for them.

A protest in the capital Minsk last month drew around 2,000 people, the largest in the country for six years. On Thursday Lukashenko said the tax, introduced in 2015, would be suspended pending amendments.

Belarus has been in recession since 2015. The average monthly salary has fallen from an all-time high of $630 in mid-2014 to $380.

On Sunday, protesters in Babruysk and Orsha called for Lukashenko's resignation. Authorities did not use force against the protesters but more than a dozen activists were detained later. </s> Hundreds of Belarusians defied a protest ban to march against a so-called parasites tax on the long-term unemployed in the latest anti-government demonstration in an eastern European country.

Police yesterday began arresting protesters after blocking the march using a cordon of riot police wielding clubs and holding shields.

Belarus has seen a wave of protests over the past two months against President Alexander Lukashenko, who has ruled since 1994.

“They’re beating the participants, dragging women by the hair to buses. I was able to run to a nearby courtyard,” demonstrator Alexander Ponomarev said. The march took place on the 99th anniversary of the proclamation of the Belarusian People’s Republic, which lasted just six months when it was formed in 1918.

Earlier, police raided the office of the human rights group Vesna. About 30 of its activists were detained, the Belarusian Helsinki Committee said.

In the days leading up to the demonstration, more than 100 opposition supporters were sentenced to jail terms of three to 15 days, Vesna reported before the raid.

Prominent opposition figure Vladimir Neklayev was reportedly pulled off a train by police during the night as he tried to travel to Minsk.

In Romania last month hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets for days in protest at a bill decriminalising official misconduct.

Yesterday’s demonstrators in Belarus shouted “shame” and “basta [enough]” and deployed the opposition’s red and white flag, first used by the independent Belarusian People’s Republic in 1918 and again after independence from the Soviet Union.

In his 23 years as president, Lukashenko has stifled dissent and free media and retained much of the Soviet-style command economy.

The protests this year initially focused on his unpopular “anti-parasite” law that calls for a £185 tax on anyone who works less than six months a year, but does not register with the state labour exchange.

But the protests broadened into general dissatisfaction with his rule, which some critics have characterised as Europe’s last dictatorship. </s> MALADZYECHNA, Belarus (AP) - The half-million Belarusians who can't find work in their country's stumbling Soviet-style economy face an array of hard choices: register with the state employment exchange, which will force them to "public work" for a pittance; pay $250 for failure to register; or risk being jailed for taking part in a rising wave of protests against the labor law.

Yevgeny Radkevich, a 19-year-old unemployed repairman, chose to protest. Recently freed from a seven-day jail stay after being arrested, he thinks he did the right thing.

"We have to go out and speak of our dissatisfaction, so that the government doesn't consider us to be slaves," Radkevich told The Associated Press in Maladzyechna, a down-at-the-heels city of 95,000 about 60 kilometers (35 miles) northwest of the capital, Minsk.

Over the past two months, such protests have broken out across the country of 9.5 million, sometimes attracting thousands of people - an unusually widespread and persistent show of opposition in an authoritarian country where dissent is generally suppressed.

The initial protests focused on the labor law but have grown to encompass calls for the resignation of President Alexander Lukashenko, whom critics call Europe's last dictator.

There were no arrests at the early protests, and Lukashenko tried to stifle the rising discontent by announcing that collecting the $250 tax would be suspended. But demonstrations continued, with more than 300 people arrested in March alone.

Lukashenko this week sharply raised tensions by claiming that Western intelligence agencies were using a "fifth column" inside the country to cause unrest, and he vowed Friday not to let Belarus repeat the fate of neighboring Ukraine. In 2014, Ukraine's Russia-friendly leader Viktor Yanukovych fled the country in the face of huge popular protests.

The tensions could come to a head on Saturday, when Lukashenko opponents plan a large demonstration in Minsk. Two days before the planned protests, the Belarusian KGB announced the detention of 26 opposition activists and claimed that weapons including grenades had been seized in apartment searches.

International human rights organization Amnesty International warned in a statement Friday that the protest must be "allowed to go ahead unhindered by excessive use of police force or arbitrary detentions."

After 23 years of Lukashenko's authoritarian rule, many Belarusians may have reached their limits. "Basta" - or "That's enough" - is a common slogan on posters at the protests.

"'Basta' means stop sitting in your armchair, stop mocking your people. 'Basta' means get out!" said Alexander Ponomarev, an unemployed electrician who served 10 days in jail after the Maladzyechna protest.

The law that has galvanized anger against Lukashenko says that anyone who works less than six months in a year and does not register with the labor exchange must pay $250. Although that's a huge amount in Belarus - about a month's average salary - an estimated 470,000 unemployed people have not registered with the exchanges, whereas only 30,000 have.

A registered person is required to do "public work" - often crude labor such as street-cleaning - at least one day a month, with compensation as low as $8.50.

The absence of arrests at the earlier protests and the suspension of fine collections suggested that Lukashenko could have been continuing what appeared to be the slow relaxation of his grip. Amid persistent economic troubles, Lukashenko has moved toward better relations with the West. Last year he released all political prisoners, which led to the lifting of European Union sanctions, and the government is seeking a $3 billion International Monetary Fund loan in exchange for economic reforms.

Lukashenko in the past has resorted to widespread crackdowns when opposition grew, notably in the protests that erupted after the 2010 presidential election. Some 700 people were arrested at the time, including seven of the candidates who ran against him.

One of those candidates, Nikolai Statkevich, spent five years in prison but is challenging the system again as an initiator of the current protests, which he sees as a watershed.

"Belarus is waking up ... political demands for regime change are coming," he said.

Anti-government protests in previous years had been largely driven by the young and comparatively well-educated. But many of the protests this year have been in provincial cities, an indication that discontent is spreading in another sector of society.

"For the first time in 20 years, a new face has appeared in Belarusian protests. It is the impoverished people, for whom fear has been replaced by desperation and social protest," said Akexander Klaskovsky, an independent political analyst.
Demonstrations spread to the second city of Belarus—Gomel—where 2,000 march against a 2015 tax law.