Sports Calendar

It can also be assumed that the protesters enjoyed the attention of the embassy, which was rumoured among the crowd to be the home of a new KGB officer employed specifically to keep track of Lukashenko's critics.

So who exactly are these dangerous people?

One of them is Irina Krasovskaya, whose businessman husband Anatoly vanished, along with Victor Gonchar, on their way home from a bathhouse on September 16, 1999.

Her calm, smiling exterior belies the brutality of the burden she bears, which puts her in a club of wives of the disappeared who have brought their case to anyone who will listen. The faces of their husbands looked out from a banner at the passing cars. Anatoly Krasovsky, with his neat philosopher's beard and angular looks, the beaming Mr Gonchar, Dmitry Zavadsky, a serious-faced Russian television cameraman and Yuri Zaharenko, the former interior minister.

Alongside them appeared the faces of political prisoners, all of them commemorated in the denim pins the protesters wore on their lapels with the number 16, to mark the date of the monthly protest.

The Belarusians in Washington had only to worry about being arrested by DC police, who typically employ rather draconian measures against demonstrations in the vicinity of embassies, but in this case actually pointed out that up to ten protesters, or about half the crowd, could legally cross the street and march up and down in front of the embassy door. A group of protesters promptly did so enthusiastically, waving their flags and chanting anti-Lukashenko slogans.

People in Minsk were less fortunate. In an attempt to win more support, the opposition has asked people simply to light candles in their windows, a move they assume will not get them arrested. Going out onto the streets is only for the pluckiest.

Irina Krasovskaya acquired an anxious look as she contemplated what might happen to them. As it turned out, she was right to be worried. About 20 people were arrested in Minsk for violating a ban on protests and the following day, 100 opposition supporters were detained because their cars were in bad shape or for other minor infractions en route to a gathering to mark the registration of Alexander Milinkevich, the opposition leader, as presidential candidate. But as Iryna Vidanava, the student publisher, put it, the opposition is in for the long haul. "I've been having difficulties for more than ten years," the diminutive 27-year-old said. "We are not scared."

View a Belarusian translation here

Read relevant blog entry here

• Send your comments on this article using the form below, and they will be considered for publication. It may be necessary to edit your contribution. Wherever possible we would like you to include your name and town of residence. Priority will be given to e-mails providing these details.