Watchdog

MINSK -- The leader of an unregistered Belarusian opposition movement has been attacked by men in civilian clothes and detained by police during the unveiling ceremony for a Lenin statue in Minsk.

Zmitser Dashkevich, the leader of Malady (Youth) Front, was attacked by several men on November 7 after he and his associates chanted "Shame! Shame!" as the communist-era statue was being unveiled at a new location.

Communist activists with red flags gathered for the unveiling ceremony in front of the Tractor Works in Minsk where the statue had been moved from its previous location within the factory compound.

Police took Dashkevich away from the event. It is not clear whether he was being charged or had been released.

Meanwhile, in the western Belarusian city of Lida on November 7, unknown assailants vandalized a Lenin statue by splashing it with red paint.

Belarus is the only former Soviet republic that continues to celebrate November 7 as a state holiday marking the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution.

Opposition groups in Russia have asked the office of Moscow's mayor for permission to stage a protest against what they call the "mass annihilation of residents" of Aleppo, Syria.

Sergei Davidis, a leader of the opposition December 5 Party, says the November 20 event would aim to attract attention to Russian military activities in Syria.

Davidis said on Facebook on November 7 that organizers of the proposed demonstration include his party, as well as opposition groups like the PARNAS party, the Libertarian Party of Russia, the For Human Rights movement, and the Solidarity movement.

Davidis said the opposition is demanding that Russia only conduct military operations in Syria against groups that the United Nations has deemed as terrorists.

He said the proposed demonstration would challenge Russia's "aggressive foreign policy" and "political repressions within Russia."

Russian air strikes are supporting forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad that are besieging rebel-held neighborhoods of Aleppo.