It’s a little opportunist, but the Belarussian opposition has to take advantage when it can! They took the anniversary of Chernobyl and turned it into a rally against Lukashenko.

MINSK, April 26 (Reuters) – Police in ex-Soviet Belarus on Tuesday detained more than two dozen protesters who tried to present a petition to President Alexander Lukashenko on the 19th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

Belarus’s small opposition, which accuses Lukashenko of systematically violating human rights, traditionally stages its largest protest of the year on the anniversary of the accident which contaminated a quarter of the country’s territory.

But given the routine dispersal by police of even small rallies in recent months, organisers decided against major protests this year and wanted instead to hand in a petition.

“Citizens of Belarus demand to know what the authorities are doing to solve the problems of Chernobyl,” read the petition, read out by activists outside the presidential administration.

Police seized about 15 of the 300 protesters after they unfurled a banner reading “Today Ukraine, tomorrow Belarus!” — referring to last year’s “Orange Revolution” protests which led to the election of liberal president Viktor Yushchenko.

About 10 activists of Russia’s liberal Union of Right Forces party were detained before the rally, a party official said.

Demonstrators were demanding an end to efforts by Lukashenko’s government to persuade villagers to return to resettle areas affected by the April 26, 1986 explosion in Chernobyl’s fourth reactor — the world’s worst civil disaster.

And they were so kind, too. Come on, Lukashenko! They just wanted to give you a petition!