Abused demonstrators: It was hell on earth.

Belarus, protesting and celebrating at the same time. Largely undisturbed, the resistance against the autocrat Aleksandr Lukashenka swells, so that many ask whether it is only the calm before the storm, before a new, violent gasp of the regime. In Minsk alone the teachers, students and artistic events held on Friday. More and more state-owned enterprises joined the strike – in the afternoon there were already more than 25 in several cities and held meetings, demanding an honest counting of the presidential election received votes or new elections. "Go away," was Lukashenka asked directly – and the security forces held back, could later, thousands of joyful protesters in Minsk to draw.

Friedrich Schmidt

Political correspondent for Russia and the CIS in Moscow.

in the night on Friday the deployment of forces remained in the Background. At the same time numerous men and women among the more than 6700 people had been arrested since Sunday have been released: in Front of the Minsk "centre of isolation of law-breakers", a "Zip" known detention facility, brought together hundreds of people to receive the Oppressed, which came through the steel doors to the outside, without phones, or wallets and often torn clothes, which they wore, as they had been discharged. In the flood of light from the headlights of the prison, they reported overcrowded cells, where they were practically in a vegetative state without bread and water and sanitary facilities, of beatings and electric shocks.

With assault rifles threatened

A young man said, the special forces Omon had beat people up and shouted: "I love Omon." Some of the young Detainees were on Wednesday night, visibly drawn, the state television has been presented, where they had to proclaim, to participate in protests. Now the released blood effusions, the witnesses of blows on the back, legs, knees and face. From a "hell on earth" spoke a man. A in the night on Wednesday arrested an er doctor by the name of Anastasia reported to the Internet portal Tut.by, special forces would have their and their paid colleagues, assault rifles held to the heads.