Monday, August 10, 2020

55 years after riots, Watts neighborhood still bears scars

Lorinda Lacy, 45, stands outside her party store painted with a mural depicting Martin Luther King Jr. in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, Tuesday, June 30, 2020. Lacy moved out of Watts 20 years ago because she didn't want her daughters to grow up with the trauma she experienced as a girl. She said she eventually became "immune" to the violence after stepping over bodies on the way to school and finding out who had been killed the night before or who had their house shot up. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)


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LOS ANGELES (AP) — There were no fires this time in Watts. There was no looting, no shooting and no National Guard troops patrolling.

Protesters filled the streets around the country in late May and June following the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd, demanding an end to police brutality. There was violence and looting in some places, including Los Angeles, but not in LA’s Watts neighborhood, forever linked to an uprising that broke out in the segregated community 55 years ago and became known as the Watts riots.

Demonstrators made a point not to go into Watts or other poor neighborhoods this time.


FILE - In this Aug. 12, 1965, file photo, demonstrators push against a police car in the Los Angeles area of Watts. Watts has been associated with an uprising in 1965 that led to burned-down buildings and bloodshed. But when some protests against racial injustice in 2020 devolved into vandalism and looting, Watts has been peaceful. (AP Photo/File)Watts has never fully recovered from fires that leveled hundreds of buildings or the violence that killed 34 people — two-thirds of whom were shot by police or National Guard troops. Those who lived through those frightening days and those who grew up in its aftermath are keenly aware of that past and the lessons it taught.

“People have learned from the history to say we’re not going to burn our community,” said state Assemblyman Mike Gipson, who was born in Watts a year after the turmoil. “We realize our community is not going to be built again.”

Watts has changed from an exclusively Black neighborhood in the 1960s to one that’s majority Latino. It remains poor, with high unemployment.


The uprising started Aug. 11, 1965, in a nearby neighborhood after the drunken driving arrest of a young Black man by a white California Highway Patrol officer. The violence reflected pent-up anger over an abusive police force, a problem that has ebbed but not entirely faded, according to those who live here.


Improvements over the years include a more diverse Los Angeles Police Department that better reflects the city’s population. One of Watts’ major public housing developments, Jordan Downs, is being rebuilt with a nearby retail shopping complex.

A government commission that studied the cause of the rebellion called for better police-community relations and more low-income housing, along with better schools, more job training, more efficient public transportation and better health care. While some gains have been made, those who live here say the area has a long way to go to overcome decades of neglect.

Black residents, people born here and those who work to make life better in Watts spoke to The Associated Press about the challenges they faced and those that remain.




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Donny Joubert remembers the chaos of 1965 through the eyes of a 5-year-old.
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Smoke filled the air and adults wept in front of a black-and-white TV tuned to images of their community burning and widespread looting.

When he saw National Guard troops walking outside, Joubert thought his plastic toy soldiers had come to life.

“What really shocked me was I look up and I see the same guys I was holding were walking through the development with guns on their shoulders,” Joubert said.

Like some young men in the area, Joubert joined a gang and ended up in jail.

But at 20, and with a young daughter, he got a second chance. Through a program founded by U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters of California he eventually got a job at the Los Angeles Housing Authority, where he’s now a grounds supervisor.

He’s also vice president of the Watts Gang Task Force, which meets weekly with police. If there are reports of an abusive officer — someone roughing people up or prone to stopping cars without cause — they tell the captain. The officer may get transferred, though Joubert is concerned that just moves the problem to another neighborhood.

He wants to see more done to prosecute police for brutality and fatal shootings. Only two officers in Los Angeles County have been prosecuted for on-duty killings in the past 20 years, a period in which close to 900 people, mostly Black and Latino, have been killed by law enforcement.

“It’s been a crooked system when it came to us. They always had a system to keep us locked up, to keep a knee in our neck,” Joubert said. “Every dirty cop that took a Black life, that took a Latino life without cause, we want them in prison because that’s what they did to us.”

___

Residents of Watts are still living with collateral damage from 1965, said the Rev. Marcus Murchinson, who preaches at the Tree of Life Missionary Baptist Church and also runs a charter high school, drug rehab clinics and offers health care.

Many of the businesses that burned were never rebuilt. A corridor of Black-owned restaurants, clothing stores and bars never rebounded.

The area has long been termed a “food desert” because of a lack of fresh fruits and vegetables and a plethora of fast food restaurants and convenience and liquor stores stocked with booze, junk food and cigarettes. It took 20 years for a supermarket to be built after the uprising.

“It was almost an act of punishment when they burned down the grocery store,” Murchinson said of the time it took to get a new one.

Murchinson, 36, who didn’t grow up in Watts, said the community has survived uprisings in 1965 and 1992 following the acquittal of the officers who beat Rodney King. But surviving is not enough.

“The spirit of the people of Watts has not changed. They are still resilient. They are still vibrant,” he said. “They have the root of survival. That is a good and bad thing. When you have the testimony of surviving, you sometimes think that is success and think surviving equates to thriving, and it doesn’t.”

He said residents still suffer from years of systemic racism in policing, banking and housing. Multiple generations of the same families continue to live in public housing projects and only a small percentage get off government assistance and achieve the dream of owning a home.

“What project is going on there?” he asked. “The project seems to be to warehouse people and make them comfortable, not competent.”
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Laundry hangs on a clothesline outside an apartment building at the Jordan Downs housing project in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, Monday, June 15, 2020. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Lavarn Young, 81, who moved to Watts from Texas in 1946, said she’s seen a lot of good change since the uprising.

Freeways built nearby make it easier to get around, there’s a light rail stop in the heart of Watts and shopping centers eventually replaced businesses that burned down in 1965.

But she said gangs have made the neighborhood more dangerous than it was a half-century ago, even if crime is not as bad as during the crack cocaine epidemic of the 1980s and early ’90s.




Young, who was horse race bookie and later worked in special education in schools, lives in her parents’ house, which is lined with family photos.

One of her sons lives in the house behind her. He gets by on disability pay after a bullet lodged in his brain when he was shot in the eye. He survived two other shootings, as well.

Young has 15 grandchildren and lots of nephews and nieces who are in and out of the house. She doesn’t ask if they are in gangs.

“You don’t have to be in a gang, but you’re associated with it,” she said. “If you’re in a Blood hood, you’re a Blood. If you’re in a Crip hood, you’re a Crip. It depends where you were born.”

Fences now separate homes on the streets where children once played on one another’s lawns, and bars cover many windows.

“Now, you hardly know your neighbors,” she said.

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Former gang member Eric Frierson, 37, lives in Imperial Courts, one of the housing projects he refers to as “tribal institutions” because of the rivalries that divide residents despite sharing “the same struggle.”

Frierson laments losing focus on becoming a good athlete and falling prey to the “distractions.”

“You come outside and see the sidewalk stained with blood. It doesn’t go anywhere. Every time you go by it, you see it,” he said.

His father was in prison, and Frierson served time for robbery, a felony conviction that prevents him from getting work.

“I went behind that wall. I continued the trend,” Frierson said.

He said he’s not optimistic the current activism will lead to big improvements. But he’s planning to set up some type of club that will provide sorely lacking activities for kids.

Frierson still sees a lot of good within the walls of the housing projects.

“There’s a lot more love in those bricks than they give us credit for,” he said.

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Hank Henderson, 62, and his family arrived in Watts from Indianapolis the year before the uprising and has seen the bad and good of the neighborhood. He remembers the fires, shattered windows, burned-out cars and soldiers in the streets.

He saw the businesses that never returned: banks, doctor’s offices, a gas station, pharmacies, a dental office, barbershops, a grocery store and cleaners.

The neighborhood was rough, but Henderson stayed out of trouble — his father wouldn’t tolerate it and he played sports. He was a local Golden Gloves champ and trains young boxers today.




Benjamin Jackson III, 10, walks past a mural depicting George Floyd in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, Tuesday, June 9, 2020. There were no fires this time in Watts. There was no looting, no shooting and no National Guard troops patrolling the streets. When protesters around the country began demanding racial justice over the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd, there may have been mentions of Watts and faint echoes of the riots that broke out in the Los Angeles neighborhood 55 years ago. But they didn't happen there. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

A shopper walks past a sculpture built in 1992 to honor Martin Luther King Jr. at a shopping mall named after Dr. King in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, Wednesday, June 17, 2020. The Los Angeles community of Watts has long been associated with deadly and destructive rioting in 1965. This summer when widespread mostly peaceful protests for racial justice across the U.S. have been accompanied at times by vandalism and other crimes, Watts has been peaceful. One lawmaker says the residents learned long ago that it didn't pay to burn their own neighborhood. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong
Noel Mata walks past a statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe made by his parents in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, Monday, Aug. 3, 2020. Watts has changed demographically from an exclusively Black neighborhood in the '60s to one that's majority Latino. But it remains a poor neighborhood with high unemployment. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)



The Black Lives Matter movement and Floyd’s death have brought attention to abuses Black people have witnessed and suffered for years, though Henderson said that situation has improved since LAPD started listening to their complaints.

“The police car says, ‘To protect and to serve’ but ‘seek and destroy’ is what they were doing,” Henderson said. “People are listening now. They’re realizing what’s been going on all these years.”

Henderson moved out of Watts about two years after a son, Rayshawn Boyce, was gunned down in 2009. The suspected killer was caught but never charged because witnesses feared for their safety.

“Here, they got this code. You don’t say nothing,” Henderson said. “They had witnesses at first but then they backed off. They would have had to move, and where were they going to go?”

Henderson left the Nickerson Gardens housing project after nearly 50 years, moving to the suburbs about 30 miles (50 kilometers) inland.

“I didn’t want to get out of here for years. I just wasn’t ready. A lot of people moved out, but they weren’t ready for the real world,” he said.

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The divisions in Watts — the gangs, the different housing projects — trickle down to children, who grow up aware of the feuds.

“Our park is surrounded by three different areas,” Benjamin Jackson Jr. said. “Certain kids from our community of Watts can’t get together. We don’t even have a neutral meeting place.”

Jackson grew up in Jordan Downs public housing, a weather-beaten collection of two-story apartment buildings originally built to house steelworkers after World War II. The complex is undergoing a major makeover that will include much-needed retail.

He still lives in the project.

“It’s easy to get in one, harder to get out because we’re born in it,” Jackson said. “The only time seeing anything different from the projects was me being incarcerated.”

Jackson got in trouble at age 10 and was in an out of lockups much of his life. He was a member of the Grape Street Crips, but now, at 44, he’s older, wiser and “no longer a gangbanger.”

He said police used to pick up him and others ostensibly for questioning. On the way to the station, they’d say they had to respond to another call and would drop him in rival turf, all alone.

They no longer do that, but he said he’s still harassed despite being a carpenter who hasn’t been on parole or probation in 10 years.

“They put me up against a wall. ‘Let’s jack him up and see if he got any warrants,’” Jackson said. “They’ll say the music was too loud when I don’t have music playing or spot me with people in the car and will just pull me over.”

He said the main goal is to get out of the projects, to give his children a better life with a house and a yard. The oldest of his seven kids, a 24-year-old daughter, has realized that dream and lives in central California.

“She ain’t never coming back,” Jackson said.

___

On a small building that backs up to freight train tracks on Compton Avenue, an image of Martin Luther King Jr. is painted on a wall across the word, “DREAM.”

Inside the Shack by the Track, Lorinda Lacy tries to make those letters come to life for Watts residents.

In addition to assembling party supplies for a living and serving snacks — hamburgers, cookies, candy — she spends a lot of her time and energy helping others.

Lacy, known as Auntie Moee, is one of many in Watts, including nonprofits and charities, who provide for those in need.

Lacy does all her work on a shoestring budget, providing blankets and pillows to the homeless, feeding children who miss out on school lunches during the summer and providing hundreds of free meals each holiday to anyone who’s hungry. She gets contributions, buys food when it’s cheap and gets handouts from churches and food pantries.

“I don’t have anything to give back but my love,” she said. “I’m not rich. I’m poor.”

Lacy said her brother, the rapper Kevin “Flipside” White, was her inspiration and mentor for giving back to the community. White was part of the group OFTB, or Operation from the Bottom, that recorded with Death Row Records and worked on several tracks with the late Tupac Shakur.

White died in a drive-by shooting in 2013.

Lacy, 45, moved out of Watts 20 years ago because she didn’t want her daughters to grow up with the trauma she experienced.

She said she she eventually became “immune” to the violence after stepping over bodies on the way to school and finding out who had been killed the night before or who had their house shot up. As a child, she slept on the floor because of frequent drive-by shootings.

“If it wasn’t every night, it was every other night,” she said.

Even though she moved out, she hasn’t given up on her old neighborhood, where her mother still lives in the house where Lacy grew up.

She’s trying to provide a safe place where people can hang out while she works. Music plays in the background and kids play games outside.

“All I’m doing is taking my stand and doing my part,” she said.

___

Gipson attributes his success partly to hardworking parents — a father who was a truck driver and a mother who was a domestic worker — who did not spare him from discipline. They taught him to respect others, and neighbors also looked out for him and told his parents when he was out of line.

There was immense pressure to join a gang, and he wanted to be part of one. But Gipson said the leader wouldn’t let him join, partly because he was afraid of Gipson’s mother.

Gipson’s turning point came in middle school when he overcame a speech impediment and low self-esteem and was elected class president.

“It was difficult growing up, but not impossible growing up in Watts,” he said.

Inspired by a cousin who worked as a U.S. marshal, Gipson eventually became a police officer in the city of Maywood and then left for a series of jobs working for politicians and unions. He was elected to City Council in Carson in 2005 and state Assembly in 2014 to represent an area that includes Watts.

He said the legacy of the Watts riots is something he keeps in mind as he tries to make life better for residents.

“I would say, even though I didn’t know them in 1965, those people didn’t lose their lives in order for someone to grow up in Watts and not create and make a better place for the next generation,” he said. “What you have seen, my God, even in 2020 where people feel disenfranchised, marginalized, feel like they’ve been pushed aside and left for dead, been invisible, their voices have not been elevated to the point where change is effective.”

Asked why so much is still needed in Watts, Gipson said change is slow. He cited the millions poured into rebuilding Jordan Downs. A new hospital that serves the area opened five years ago to replace the county-run Martin Luther King Jr. hospital that was closed after patient deaths and shoddy care.

Floyd’s death inspired Gipson to introduce legislation to ban the use of a controversial neck hold that police officers use to restrain suspects. Floyd was handcuffed on the ground and gasping for air as an officer pressed a knee in his neck for nearly eight minutes.

Gipson also wants to see bias training for police, more people of color hired on the force and an affirmative action ban in the state repealed.

“We’re not the same California we were 55 years ago or the city of Los Angeles 55 years ago. We’re moving forward, we’re bringing people together,” Gipson said. “Voices are saying, ‘We’ve been mistreated.’ Change is in the air.”


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The Decline and Fall of the. Spectacle-Commodity Economy. August 13-16, 1965, the blacks of Los Angeles revolted. An incident between traffic police and ...
Debord's Marxist perspective on Watts understands the insurgents as potential ... Situationist scholar Jason E. Smith notes that film SotS, made in 1973—five ... Riot, 125–126. ↩; Ibid., 184–185. ↩; Aarons, “No Selves to Abolish,” 127. ↩. Bio ..

UPDATE
Belarusians Clashed With Riot Police After Their “Dictator” President Claimed Victory

President Alexander Lukashenko has claimed a sixth election victory. But his incumbent challenger, a former English teacher, said she won’t recognize the results.

Christopher Miller BuzzFeed News Contributor

Posted on August 10, 2020, at 6:38 a.m. E

Vasily Fedosenko / Reuters
A law enforcement officer gestures next to a man laying on the ground during clashes with opposition supporters in Minsk, Belarus, on Sunday.

KYIV — Riot police violently suppressed thousands of protesters who poured into the streets of the Belarusian capital, Minsk, to challenge the results of Sunday’s hotly contested presidential election.

President Alexander Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus with an iron first for 26 years, claimed a landslide victory in the election, which was marred by accusations of vote-rigging. The Belarusian Central Election Commission said preliminary results indicated that he won 80% of the vote while his surprise challenger, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, finished second with just 9%. Authorities did not allow any independent observers to monitor the vote.

But on Monday, Tikhanovskaya claimed victory for herself. “We do not recognize the election results. We saw real ballots,” she was quoted by local media as saying. “We urge those who believe that his vote was stolen not to remain silent.”

She also said she was prepared to sit down with Lukashenko to discuss the situation. But Lukashenko, who was busy touring an agricultural facility and getting back to business, did not respond to the request on Monday.

Tikhanovskaya, a 37-year-old former English teacher and homemaker, rose from obscurity after the jailing of her would-be candidate husband, a popular vlogger, to gather the largest political rallies in Belarus since the fall of the Soviet Union. According to her and to independent local media reports that published documents with the tallies, several precincts in Minsk showed her with 70% to 80% of the vote. In one video from a polling station, an election commission member is seen climbing down a ladder from a second-story window and being handed a bag presumably full of ballots.

Early Monday morning, Tikhanovskaya announced that she would not concede to Lukashenko or recognize the votes.


Vasily Fedosenko / Reuters
Protesters lock arms in the streets of Minsk.

Many thousands of her supporters spilled into the streets of Minsk and several other cities across the country after polls closed Sunday night. The protesters marched through Minsk with their cellphones illuminated in the night sky before hundreds of armed security forces — many of whom had been bussed into the capital earlier in the day — began dispersing them.

Videos and photographs shared by independent Belarusian news outlets showed police officers hurling stun grenades and tear gas canisters into the crowds while people chanted “Long live Belarus!” and “Go away!” and “This is our country!”



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Police were also seen firing rubber bullets at demonstrators and deploying water cannons and anti-riot vehicles to push the crowds back. Officers were seen on video chasing down protesters and clubbing them with batons before dragging some into vans and hauling them away. In some cases, officers were briefly overrun by groups of protesters.


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Минск сегодня вечером: ряды ОМОНа со щитами, водометы, светошумовые гранаты.10:05 PM - 09 Aug 2020
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Meanwhile, authorities managed to limit internet access and cellphone service, and to take down independent news websites, making it difficult for anyone to find information about the events and to communicate.

As night turned to early morning, the streets of Minsk were covered in blood, and tear gas hung in the air. Reports said more than 3,000 protesters had been detained by police and jailed. The human rights group Viasna reported that at least one protester died after sustaining brain injuries when a police truck ran him over. Several others were being treated for a variety of wounds inflicted by police. An Associated Press photographer was reportedly detained and beaten unconscious in the back of a police van.


Siarhei Leskiec / Getty Images
Riot police disperse protesters.

Belarus’s Ministry of Internal Affairs reported that 39 law enforcement officers and more than 50 protesters had been wounded in all.

Clashes were also reported in some 20 other cities, including Grodno and Brest in the country’s west. But in some of the smaller cities, riot police were reported to have refused to crack down on protesters. Videos shared online showed one group retreating and another putting down their shields. A protester is seen in one video approaching an officer and hugging him.

Overnight, Tikhanovskaya called on police forces to immediately halt attacks on demonstrators and for her supporters to stop any provocative actions. “I want to ask the militia and troops to remember that they are part of the people,” she said. “Please, stop the violence.”


Sergei Gapon / Getty Images
Presidential candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya holds a press conference on Monday, the day after Belarus' presidential election.


Tikhanovskaya was part of an all-woman trio of political novices who managed to capture Belarusians’ imagination with a promise of change and three simple hand gestures that have become symbols of hope for people tired of Lukashenko: ✌️✊❤️. The women did so after several male candidates were barred from running and Lukashenko allowed Tikhanovskaya to register — something that now appears to have been a big political miscalculation.

Veronika Tsepkalo, one of the trio and a campaign advisor for Tikhanovskaya, told BuzzFeed News that she believed Lukashenko underestimated the potential of a female candidate.

Famously known as “Europe’s Last Dictator,” Lukashenko has won five previous elections, although only the first one in 1994 was ruled free and fair by independent observers. He enjoyed strong support from Belarusians for years, mainly thanks to economic stability. But that support seemed to come to an end in recent months due to egregious human rights abuses, a stagnant economy, and his failure to properly handle the coronavirus pandemic, which has ripped through the population of 9.5 million.

While Lukashenko looks to move on, Tikhanovskaya’s chief of staff, Maria Kolesnikova, said on Monday that their team was ready for a long protest. And the candidate herself said she would do everything possible to overturn the results.

MORE ON THIS
Massive Crowds Are Rallying Around This 37-Year-Old Woman Trying To Oust “Europe’s Last Dictator”
Christopher Miller · Aug. 7, 2020
Christopher Miller · Aug. 7, 2020


Christopher Miller is a Kyiv-based American journalist and editor.


Police, protesters clash in Belarus as election poll says Lukashenko wins 6th term

A demonstrator stands in front of riot police during a protest after polling stations closed in the presidential elections, in Minsk, Belarus, on Sunday. Photo by Tatyana Zenkovich/EPA-EFE

Aug. 10 (UPI) -- Protesters and riot police clashed in Belarus as demonstrators took to the streets in opposition to early exit polls that indicate incumbent President Aleksandr Lukashenko would handily win a sixth term at the country's helm.

Election officials late Sunday released exit poll data showing that the authoritarian president had secured nearly 80% of the vote to main opposition Svetlana Tikhanovskaya's 6.8%


The opposition has previously expressed worries the election would be rigged, and Tikhanovskaya told reporters during a press conference after the poll was released that she does not accept the tally.

"I believe my eyes, and I see that the majority is with us," she said.


Lidia Yermoshina, chairwoman of the Central Election Commission, said based on preliminary estimates from Sunday's vote that nearly 5.8 million people, or 84.23% of eligible voters, cast a ballot in the election, state-run Belta news agency reported.

The tally, she said, will be double-checked but "I don't think that they will change dramatically."

In the capital of Minsk, riot police used tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannons Sunday night to disperse protesters, some of who were injured, Viasna, a human rights organization in Belarus, said in a statement, adding at least 70 protesters were arrested


In the weeks before the election, human rights organizations warned of ongoing arbitrary arrests of peaceful protesters, journalists and bloggers.

"Belarusian authorities are using flimsy pretexts to silence journalists and critics, which should never happen, but that has even more damning consequences for citizens' rights in an election period," Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said in a late July statement. "The international community should not ignore such serious flouting of human rights obligations."

Since May, Viasna has reported that more than 1,000 people have been arbitrarily arrested, including Tikhanovskaya's husband, Sergey Tikhanovskaya, a YouTube blogger and former presidential candidate.

Following his arrest, Tikhanovskaya, 37, took her husband's place on the ballot, the BBC reported.

A day before the election, Viasna reported that Tikhanovskaya's campaign manager, Maryia Maroz, was also detained though the charges had yet to be announced.

Lukashenko was first elected to the country's highest office in 1994.

Belarus’ leader wins sixth term with over 80% of votes


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Protesters carry a wounded man during clashes with police after the presidential election in Minsk, Belarus, early Monday, Aug. 10, 2020. Police and protesters clashed in Belarus' capital and the major city of Brest on Sunday after the presidential election in which the authoritarian leader who has ruled for a quarter-century sought a sixth term in office. (AP Photo)
MINSK, Belarus (AP) — Election officials in Belarus said Monday that President Alexander Lukashenko has won his sixth consecutive term, taking over 80% of the vote amid protests fueled by frustration with the country’s deteriorating economy, years of political repression and the authoritarian incumbent’s cavalier brushoff of the coronavirus threat.

Human rights groups said one person was killed — which the authorities denied — and dozens were injured in a police crackdown on protests that followed Sunday’s presidential election.

The country’s central election commission said that with all ballots counted, Lukashenko, who has led Belarus for 26 years, took 80.23% of the vote and his main opposition challenger, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, had only 9.9%.

Opposition supporters believe the election results were rigged and plan to gather in Minsk for more protests on Monday evening.

“We don’t recognize these results,” Tsikhanouskaya, a former English teacher and political novice, told reporters Monday.

“According to the data we receive from precincts, we won, and this corresponds with what we saw at polling stations,” she said. “People stood in lines at polling stations in order to vote for Tsikhanouskaya. I believe my own eyes rather than the data of the central election commission.”

Thousands of people took to the streets in a number of Belarusian cities and towns on Sunday night, protesting the early count suggesting Lukashenko’s landslide victory. They faced rows of riot police in black uniforms who moved quickly to disperse the demonstrators, firing flash-bang grenades and beating them with truncheons.

The brutal crackdown followed a tense campaign that saw massive rallies against Lukashenko, who has ruled the ex-Soviet nation with an iron fist for 26 years. Lukashenko has not yet commented on the results or the protests, only saying on Monday that “the people” should be the cornerstone of any politics, according to the state news agency Belta.

According to the Viasna human rights group, more than 200 protesters were detained, dozens sustained injuries and one died as the result of the clashes with police.

The Interior Ministry said Monday no one was killed during the protests and called reports about a fatality “an absolute fake.” According to officials, 89 people were injured during the protests, including 39 law enforcement officers, and some 3,000 people were detained.

On Monday morning, Belarus’ Investigative Committee opened a criminal probe into mass riots and violence toward police officers. 
BLAMING THE PROTESTERS DEFENDING POLICE BRUTALITY



“What has happened is awful,” Tsikhanouskaya told reporters Sunday.

An AP journalist was beaten by police and treated at a hospital.

At Minsk’s Hospital No. 10, an AP reporter saw a dozen ambulances delivering protesters with fragmentation wounds and cuts from stun grenades and other injuries.

European officials urged Belarusian authorities to adhere to standards of democracy and respect the people’s civil rights on Sunday.

Lithuanian Foreign Minister Linas Linkevicius told the BNS news agency on Monday that “it’s difficult to call this election transparent, democratic and free, regrettably.” Poland’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement on Monday morning saying that “the harsh reaction of the law enforcement forces, the use of force against peaceful protesters, and arbitrary arrests are unacceptable.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin, in the meantime, congratulated Lukashenko on his win on Monday, and so did the president of Kazakhstan, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev. The results of the vote “indicate the popular support” of Lukashenko’s rule, Tokayev said.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a Facebook post Monday it was “obvious that not everyone in the country agrees with the announced preliminary election results. And, as we know, any legitimacy arises solely from public trust,” urging Minsk to refrain from violence and calling for dialogue with the opposition.

Two prominent opposition challengers were denied places on the ballot, but Tsikhanouskaya, the wife of a jailed opposition blogger, managed to unite opposition groups and draw tens of thousands to her campaign rallies, tapping growing anger over a stagnant economy and fatigue with Lukashenko’s autocratic rule.

Lukashenko was defiant as he voted earlier in the day, warning that the opposition will meet a tough response.

“If you provoke, you will get the same answer,” he said. “Do you want to try to overthrow the government, break something, wound, offend, and expect me or someone to kneel in front of you and kiss them and the sand onto which you wandered? This will not happen.”

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, whose assessments of elections are widely regarded as authoritative, was not invited to send observers.




Tsikhanouskaya had crisscrossed the country, tapping into public frustration with a worsening economy and Lukashenko’s swaggering response to the pandemic.

Belarus, a country of 9.5 million people, has reported more than 68,500 coronavirus cases and 580 deaths but critics have accused authorities of manipulating the figures to downplay the death toll.

Lukashenko has dismissed the virus as “psychosis” and declined to apply measures to stop its spread, saying a lockdown would have doomed the already weak economy. He announced last month that he had been infected but had no symptoms and recovered quickly, allegedly thanks to playing sports.

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Associated Press journalists Jim Heintz, Vladimir Isachenkov and Daria Litvinova in Moscow contributed to this story.
UPDATE
Police break up protests after Belarus presidential vote
Demonstrators run away from police as they gather to protest against a result of the Belarusian presidential election in Minsk, Belarus, Sunday, Aug. 9, 2020. Police and protesters clashed in Belarus' capital and the major city of Brest on Sunday after the presidential election in which the authoritarian leader who has ruled for a quarter-century sought a sixth term in office. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)




MINSK, Belarus (AP) — Phalanxes of Belarusian police in full riot gear violently dispersed thousands of demonstrators who poured into the streets to challenge the early count from Sunday’s presidential election indicating the longtime authoritarian leader won a sixth term by a landslide.

Hundreds of people were detained, according to a leading rights group.

The brutal crackdown that began late Sunday and lasted through the night followed a tense campaign that saw massive rallies against President Alexander Lukashenko, who has ruled the ex-Soviet nation with an iron hand for 26 years.

Election officials declared that early returns show 65-year-old Lukashenko winning with more than 80% of the vote while the main challenger, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, a former English teacher and political novice, had about 8%.

Tsikhanouskaya rejected the official claims, saying “I will believe my own eyes — the majority was for us.”

Thousands of her supporters quickly took to the streets of the capital to protest what they saw as official manipulations of the vote. They faced rows of riot police in black uniforms who moved quickly to disperse the demonstrators, firing flash-bang grenades and beating them with truncheons.

After breaking up the big crowds, police relentlessly chased smaller groups of protesters across downtown Minsk for the next several hours.

Several other cities across the country saw similar crackdowns on protesters.

Interior Ministry spokeswoman Olga Chemodanova said that police efforts to restore order were continuing overnight, but wouldn’t say how many people were detained.

Ales Bilyatsky of the Viasna human rights group told The Associated Press several hundred were detained and hundreds injured in the police crackdown.

“What has happened is awful,” Tsikhanouskaya told reporters Sunday.

An AP journalist was beaten by police and treated at a hospital.


At Minsk’ Hospital No. 10, an AP reporter saw a dozen ambulances delivering protesters with fragmentation wounds and cuts from stun grenades and other injuries.

“It was a peaceful protest, we weren’t using force,” said 23-year-old protester, Pavel Konoplyanik, who was accompanying his friend who had a plastic grenade fragment stuck in his neck. “No one will believe in the official results of the vote, they have stolen our victory.”

Konoplyanik, whose legs were also cut by fragments of police grenades, said he doesn’t want to leave the country but fears that he might have no other choice.

Two prominent opposition challengers were denied places on the ballot, but Tsikhanouskaya, the wife of a jailed opposition blogger, managed to unite opposition groups and draw tens of thousands to her campaign rallies, tapping growing anger over a stagnant economy and fatigue with Lukashenko’s autocratic rule.

Lukashenko was defiant as he voted earlier in the day, warning that the opposition will meet a tough response.




“If you provoke, you will get the same answer,” he said. “Do you want to try to overthrow the government, break something, wound, offend, and expect me or someone to kneel in front of you and kiss them and the sand onto which you wandered? This will not happen.”


Mindful of Belarus’ long history of violent crackdowns on dissent — protesters were beaten after the 2010 election and six rival candidates arrested, three of whom were imprisoned for years — Tsikhanouskaya called for calm earlier Sunday.

“I hope that everything will be peaceful and that the police will not use force,” she said after voting.

After the polls closed, about 1,000 protesters gathered near the obelisk honoring Minsk as a World War II “hero city,” where police harshly clashed with them, beating some with truncheons and later using flash-bang grenades to try to disperse them. Some of the protesters later tried to build barricades with trash containers, but police quickly broke them up.

Three journalists from the independent Russian TV station Dozhd were detained after interviewing an opposition figure and were deported.


Tsikhanouskaya emerged as Lukashenko’s main opponent after two other aspirants were denied places on the ballot. Viktor Babariko, head of a major Russia-owned bank, was jailed for charges he called political, and Valery Tsepkalo, entrepreneur and former ambassador to the United States, fled to Russia with his children after warnings that he would be arrested and his children taken away.

Tsepkalo’s wife Veronika became a top member of Tsikhanouskaya’s campaign, but she left the country too early Sunday, fearing for her safety, said campaign spokeswoman Anna Krasulina. Over the weekend, eight members of Tsikhanouskaya’s campaign staff were arrested.




Many voters were defiant in the face of Lukashenko’s vow not to tolerate any protests.

“There is no more fear. Belarusians will not be silent and will protest loudly,” 24-year-old Tatiana Protasevich said at a Minsk polling place.


As polls opened, the country’s central elections commission said more than 40% of the electorate had cast ballots in five days of early voting, a process the opposition saw as offering fertile ground for manipulation.

“For five nights nobody has guarded the ballot boxes, which gives the authorities a wide field for maneuverings,” Veronika Tsepkalo told AP before leaving Belarus.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, whose assessments of elections are widely regarded as authoritative, was not invited to send observers.

Tsikhanouskaya had crisscrossed the country, tapping into public frustration with a worsening economy and Lukashenko’s swaggering response to the pandemic.


Belarus, a country of 9.5 million people, has reported more than 68,500 coronavirus cases and 580 deaths but critics have accused authorities of manipulating the figures to downplay the death toll.

Lukashenko has dismissed the virus as “psychosis” and declined to apply measures to stop its spread, saying a lockdown would have doomed the already weak economy. He announced last month that he had been infected but had no symptoms and recovered quickly, allegedly thanks to playing sports.

Yet for some voters, Lukashenko’s long, hardline rule was a plus.

“He is an experienced politician, not a housewife who appeared out of nowhere and muddied the waters,” retiree Igor Rozhov said Sunday. “We need a strong hand that will not allow riots.”

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Associated Press journalists Jim Heintz and Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow contributed to this story.


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Blast destroyed landmark 19th century palace in Beirut

Broken glass and window frames lay on the floor of the Sursock Palace, heavily damaged after the explosion in the seaport of Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, Aug. 7, 2020. The level of destruction from the massive explosion at Beirut's port last week is ten times worse than what 15 years of civil war did. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)


BEIRUT (AP) — The 160-year-old palace withstood two world wars, the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the French mandate and Lebanese independence. After the country’s 1975-1990 civil war, it took 20 years of careful restoration for the family to bring the palace back to its former glory.

“In a split second, everything was destroyed again,” says Roderick Sursock, owner of Beirut’s landmark Sursock Palace, one of the most storied buildings in the Lebanese capital.

He steps carefully over the collapsed ceilings, walking through rooms covered in dust, broken marble and crooked portraits of his ancestors hanging on the cracked walls. The ceilings of the top floor are all gone, and some of the walls have collapsed. The level of destruction from the massive explosion at Beirut’s port last week is 10 times worse than what 15 years of civil war did, he says.

A painting hangs on the wall of a heavily damaged room in the Sursock Palace after the explosion in the seaport of Beirut, Lebanon, Saturday, Aug. 8, 2020. The level of destruction from the massive explosion at Beirut's port last week is ten times worse than what 15 years of civil war did. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)


More than 160 people were killed in the blast, around 6,000 were injured and thousands of residential buildings and offices were damaged. Several heritage buildings, traditional Lebanese homes, museums and art galleries have also sustained various degrees of damage.

The Sursock palace, built in 1860 in the heart of historical Beirut on a hill overlooking the now-obliterated port, is home to beautiful works of arts, Ottoman-era furniture, marble and paintings from Italy — collected by three long-lasting generations of the Sursock family.

The Greek Orthodox family, originally from the Byzantine capital, Constantinople — now Istanbul — settled in Beirut in 1714.

The three-story mansion has been a landmark in Beirut. With its spacious garden, it’s been the venue for countless weddings, cocktail parties and receptions over the years, and has been admired by tourists who visit the nearby Sursock museum.

The house in Beirut’s Christian quarter of Achrafieh is listed as a cultural heritage site, but Sursock said only the army has come to assess the damage in the neighborhood. So far, he’s had no luck reaching the Culture Ministry.

The palace is so damaged that it will require a long, expensive and delicate restoration, “as if rebuilding the house from scratch,” Sursock says.

Roderick Sursock stands in a heavily damaged room of the Sursock Palace, affected by the explosion in the seaport of Beirut, Lebanon, Saturday, Aug. 8, 2020. "In a split second, everything was destroyed again," said Sursock, owner of the charming Sursock Palace, one of the most prominent and well-known buildings in the Lebanese capital. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)
A broken statue from the 19th century lays on the floor of the Sursock Palace, heavily damaged after the explosion in the seaport of Beirut, Lebanon, Saturday, Aug. 8, 2020. The Sursock palace, built in 1860 in the heart of historical Beirut on top of a hill overlooking the now-obliterated port, is home to beautiful works of arts, Ottoman-era furniture, marble and paintings from Italy — the result of more than three long-lasting generations of the Sursock family. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)

Sursock has moved to a nearby pavilion in the palace gardens, but this has been his home for many years alongside his American wife, his 18-year-old daughter and his mother, Yvonne. He says the 98-year-old Lady Cochrane (born Sursock) had courageously stayed in Beirut during the 15 years of the civil war to defend the palace. His wife was just dismissed from hospital, as the blast was so powerful that the wave affected her lungs.

Sursock says there is no point in restoring the house now — at least not until the country fixes its political problems.

“We need a total change, the country is run by a gang of corrupt people,” he said angrily.

Despite his pain and the damage from last week’s blast, Sursock, who was born in Ireland, says he will stay in Lebanon, where he has lived his whole life and which he calls home.

But he desperately hopes for change.

“I hope there is going to be violence and revolution because something needs to break, we need to move on, we cannot stay as we are.”