Relative lack of violence in Belarus

MINSK, Belarus — The demonstrators were in high spirits, chanting "Police be with the people!" each time they marched past officers keeping watch but not interfering.

They were elated after a day in which opponents of President Alexander Lukashenko confronted about 1,000 police who blocked a rally at a central square and weren't met with swinging truncheons as dissidents often are in authoritarian Belarus.

Then protesters were allowed to hold an unauthorized rally in a nearby park, where opposition leader Alexander Milinkevich spoke stirringly to the crowd under a huge statue of Belarusian poet Yanka Kupala.

"We are starting work against dictatorship, and this work will sooner or later bear its fruit," Milinkevich said. But, apparently hoping to calm tensions and gain time to build opposition forces, he also urged a monthlong recess in protests.

Still, some of those in the crowd answered a call by another opposition leader, Alexander Kozulin, to march to a jail about two miles away in support of hundreds of people arrested during a week of protests over what Lukashenko's opponents call his fraudulent re-election victory.

Down the street leading under a railroad overpass stood a three-deep row of riot police, wearing black uniforms and helmets and bearing shields and long clubs.

The explosion of a percussion grenade shook the air. People began moving nervously back along the narrow, icy space at the top of the embankment.

Another blast, and the retreat sped up. With the third explosion, people plunged down the embankment.

Interior Minister Vladimir Naumov later denied the explosions were set off by police but did not say what caused them.

More than 100 people were arrested throughout the day, said Ales Byalyatsky of the human rights group Vasnya.

The International Helsinki Federation said one demonstrator was severely injured with a fractured skull. A Russian journalist, Pavel Sheremet, was beaten and detained earlier in the central city, his father told The Associated Press.

Among those arrested at the march was Kozulin, who like Milinkevich was a candidate against Lukashenko in the election. His spokeswoman, Nina Shedlovskaya, said he was beaten by police.

Kozulin apparently initiated the march to the jail, angering Milinkevich, who said that "Kozulin decided to spoil this holiday for the people."

The rally at the park was the biggest since the first protest on election night, when about 10,000 people turned out.

Milinkevich called for the next rally to take place April 26, the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster, which sent radiation over Belarus. Many people are unhappy over Lukashenko's moves to repopulate evacuated areas of the contamination zone.

Saturday's rally came on the anniversary of Belarus' first independence declaration in 1918, which Milinkevich hoped would spur a big turnout of discontented Belarusians.