Signatures for Lukashenka and Lyabedzka collected near Homel supermarket

The signature collection started in Belarus on July 23. Pickets in support of UCP leader Anatol Lyabedzka and President Alyaksandr Lukashenka were organized in Homel on that day.

UCP members started working on the threshold of the supermarket Homel at 11 a.m. Security guards came up to them an hour later and told them to leave. When the guards understood that the picket was legal, they asked the activists to move ten meters away. The picket was in customers’ way, the security guards said.

The signature collectors faced no aggression in the first hour of their work – people reacted in a good way, deputy UCP leader Vasil Palyakou said.

Palyakou: “The supermarket representatives came out and told us to leave. Then we agreed to move ten meters away. Everything was solved. A few people have already signed. This is only the first hour of the first day. People usually watch from aside and start bringing their passports at the end of the week and the collection of signatures gets faster.”

Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s initiative group organized their picket near the supermarket an hour later. One more Lukashenka’s picket could be seen near the railway station.