Thousands of people at the protest: Belarusian police arrested dozens of demonstrators

Belarusian police arrested dozens of demonstrators today at a protest of thousands of people in Minsk due to police violence and election fraud, according to local media and activists.

Clashes broke out when masked men tried to arrest protestors who resisted, according to footage from Belsat television and the independent media outlet Tut, reports France Presse.

In another video, the police brutally put demonstrators into vans, according to the French agency.

According to activists from the Vijasna group, more than 40 people were arrested.

Earlier today, a peaceful gathering of women was held in the center of Minsk.

Some hit pots, while others chanted "Give us back Masha", alluding to the arrested opposition leader Maria Kolesnikova.

She was arrested early Sunday after she resisted forced expulsion from the country by tearing up her passport.

Interior Ministry spokeswoman Olga Chemodanova told AFP that "women have been arrested," without giving a number or other details.

Belsat, an opposition television station based in Warsaw, said two of its journalists covering the protest had been arrested.

By arresting the authorities of Belarus, they are trying to quell the almost month-long mass protests due to the re-election of authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko in the August elections.

The protests in Belarus, unprecedented in terms of number of participants and duration, began after the elections on August 9, in which, according to the official results, Lukashenko gained the right to a sixth term, winning more than 80 percent of the votes.

In the first days of the protests, the police dealt massively with the demonstrators, arresting more than 7.000 people and beating hundreds.

Arrests are not so common now, as the government has turned to selective arrests of opposition activists and demonstrators.

Lukashenko (66) has ruled Belarus with a firm hand since July 1994, with repression of the opposition and independent media.

He did not have a serious opponent in the elections, since the government did not approve the candidacies of his two main rivals, Valerij Cepkal and Viktor Babarik.

Babariko was arrested, and Cepkalo fled to Russia after being warned that he would be arrested and that his children would be taken away.

In those circumstances, his main opponent in the elections became the wife of a popular blogger who is in prison, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, a former English teacher with no political experience.

Tikhanovskaya managed to unite opposition groups and attract tens of thousands of people to election rallies, the largest opposition rallies in Belarus since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

After the election, whose official results she contested, she fled to Lithuania.

In previous weeks, the Belarusian authorities arrested or expelled from the country all the members of the opposition Coordination Council headed by Kolesnikova.

The council was formed with the aim of starting a dialogue with Lukashenko on the change of government.