Lithuania Organizes the Freedom Way in Solidarity with Belarus

On Sunday, Lithuania is organizing the "Freedom Way" in solidarity with Belarus. The 39km human chain will connect Vilnius downtown and the Belarus border.

Former and current presidents of Lithuania, Dalia Grybauskaitė and Gitanas Nausėda, along with thousands of Lithuanians and Belarusians, will join the peaceful solidarity event. 

In Estonia, the Freedom Way “will stretch from Freedom Square in Tallinn to the Embassy of Belarus”, Andrius Tapinas, Lithuanian journalist and initiator of the event, wrote on Facebook on Monday.

Latvians are organizing similar events and “are planning a motorcade towards Lithuania” to join the Freedom Way in the neighboring country. In Ukraine and Georgia, the human chains will stretch towards the Belarusian embassies.

In August 1989, around two million Lithuanians, Latvians, and Estonians joined forces to create a 600-kilometer long human chain, which became known as the Baltic Way, as an expression of freedom and as a protest against the continued occupation of their countries by the Soviet Union.

Approximately two million people joined their hands to form a human chain. Within seven months of the protest, Lithuania became the first of the Soviet republics to declare independence.

Now, Lithuania is expressing solidarity with the people of Belarus, who are fighting for freedom today.

Alexander Lukashenko won the 2020 election in Belarus with a reported 80.23% of the vote, which was met with widespread protests throughout the country and violent repression by the Belarusian authorities. Protests in Belarus have been ongoing since the August 9 presidential election. Protesters say massive vote-rigging has taken place and the winner is not Alexander Lukashenko but the opposition candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya. Hundreds of people were injured in clashes with police during the protests, and 3 protesters were killed.

By Ana Dumbadze 

Image: The Baltic Way, August 1989