(23 Mar 2006)
++NIGHT SHOTS++
1. Wide shot of cars driving down the street in central Minsk
2. Wide shot of rally and tent city
3. Mid shot pan of people praying and waving flags
4. Close up girl with candle praying
5. Various of people making sandwiches
6. Belarusian student, Katya, distributing sandwiches
7. Mid-shot people by a tent
8. SOUNDBITE: (English) Katya, student:
"Of course, it won't be very pleasant for me (if the University finds out about her participation in protests) but I think in five years, if Lukashenko stays, it will be much worse for us, for me personally to live in this country where we have no prospects."
9. Mid-shot of tent with poster of opposition candidate Alexander Milinkevich
10.SOUNDBITE: (English) Katya, student:
"Great number of people are staying at home because they think, they are just fatalists. I think all of our people are fatalists. And they don't think that something can be changed by being here."
11. Mid-shot of people with candles talking
12. Mid-shot of rally
13. Close up of candles
14. Wide shot of cars driving down the street in central Minsk
STORYLINE:
On Wednesday about 200 protesters gathered around a handful of tents to brave their way through the fourth night of their vigil on a central Minsk square to protest against a new five-year term for President Alexander Lukashenko.
A small, make-shift tent camp has become the epicentre of protests against alleged fraud in Sunday's presidential election in which President Alexander Lukashenko won a third term.
Katya, a 19 year old linguistics student was spending her second night on the square.
She has been keeping up her university studies by day, as staff have been very strict with attendance, fearing students would join the protesters.
"Of course, it won't be very pleasant for me (if the University finds out about her participation in protests) but I think in five years, if Lukashenko stays, it will be much worse for us, for me personally to live in this country where we have no prospects, " said Katya.
The leader of the Belarusian opposition urged solidarity on Wednesday in the face of a growing crackdown on government critics protesting the disputed re-election of Lukashenko.
The human rights centre Vyasna said that 150 people have been detained in connection with the protests, some of them released but others tried and sentenced, usually to a week or two behind bars.
Two newspaper editors who were detained were sentenced to 10 days in jail on Wednesday for swearing.
Two other senior opposition figures were detained on Tuesday and sentenced to 15 and 10 days in jail respectively for participation in an unsanctioned protest.
According to the official vote count of the elections, Lukashenko, a former collective farm director who has been in power for 12 years, won with nearly 83-percent.
Popular among many Belarusians for providing economic and political stability, his victory had been expected.
His push for a new vote is supported by the United States, which has called Lukashenko a tyrant and along with the European Union is mulling over punishment for what they call an undemocratic election.
A major test is shaping up for Saturday, with Milinkevich calling for protesters to come out in force on the anniversary of the declaration of the first independent Belarusian republic in 1918.
Eager to muster public support behind their call for democratic change, the activists started putting up tents, a strategy successfully used in the so-called Orange Revolution in Ukraine, which ushered an opposition leader to power in 2004.
keyword-protests
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