{"id":11671,"date":"2021-01-22T09:56:20","date_gmt":"2021-01-22T09:56:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=153383"},"modified":"2021-01-22T09:56:20","modified_gmt":"2021-01-22T09:56:20","slug":"man-hospitalized-in-grave-condition-after-setting-himself-on-fire-in-minsk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/01\/22\/man-hospitalized-in-grave-condition-after-setting-himself-on-fire-in-minsk\/","title":{"rendered":"Man Hospitalized In Grave Condition After Setting Himself On Fire In Minsk"},"content":{"rendered":"
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MINSK — A man has been hospitalized in grave condition after setting himself on fire<\/a><\/strong> in the central Independence Square in Minsk, where mass protests demanding the resignation of Alyaksandr Lukashenka have been under way since August.<\/p>\n

Video of the incident on January 22 showed a man engulfed in a fiery ball rolling on the ground for several seconds, with what appears to be a gas canister nearby.<\/p>\n

One video that captured the incident shows police officers trying to cover him with a blanket to extinguish the fire.<\/p>\n

The incident took place near the building that houses the government, parliament, Minsk city administration, and the City Council.<\/p>\n

Minsk city administration spokeswoman Natallya Hanusevich said in a statement that the incident was being investigated.<\/p>\n

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Crisis In Belarus<\/h3>\n
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Read our coverage<\/strong><\/a> as Belarusians take to the streets to demand the resignation of President Alyaksandr Lukashenka and call for new elections after official results from the August 9 presidential poll gave Lukashenka a landslide victory.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Interior Ministry spokeswoman Volha Chamadanava added in a statement that “at this point, it is not possible to give detailed information on the incident.”<\/p>\n

“The investigative group was dispatched to the site. As soon as we know all the circumstances around the incident, we will let the public know,” Chamadanava said.<\/p>\n

Health Ministry officials said that the man, whose identity was not disclosed, is unconscious and had burns over 50 percent of his body.<\/p>\n

Belarus has been gripped by a political crisis since August 9, when officials declared Alyaksandr Lukashenka, who has run the country with an iron fist since 1994, the winner of a presidential election.<\/p>\n

Opposition figures called the vote rigged, with thousands taking to the streets to protest on an almost daily basis.<\/p>\n

Lukashenka\u2019s declaration of victory has not been recognized by Western nations, many of whom have slapped him and other Belarus officials with sanctions for their violent crackdown on the dissent.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

This post was originally published on Radio Free<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MINSK \u2014 A man has been hospitalized in grave condition after setting himself on fire in the central Independence Square in Minsk, where mass protests demanding the resignation\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[78,4,23,79,26],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11671"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11671"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11671\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11672,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11671\/revisions\/11672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}