Six Muslims killed in Minsk airport during protests against Islamophobia in Belarus

At least six Afghan and Iraqi people were killed in the Minsk airport on Saturday after police fired at Muslim protesters during a spontaneous demonstration against Islamophobia in Belarus, police officials said. The riot randomly started when Belarusian law enforcement institutions refused to give back the seized passports to the Muslim refugees who recently arrived in Belarus.

“We had to fire teargas and rubber bullets to disperse them as they entered an airport’s security premises and carried out extensive vandalism,” the police official told the Belarusian mass media, referring to protesters.

Islamophobia recently has become a major issue for the Belarusian administration, since flow of immigrants from the Muslim states continues to grow every day.

The protesters in Minsk airport were from Kabul (Afghanistan), an Islamist group opposed to the more radical Taleban movement, who critics say has been pushing drastic Sharia Law in Afghanistan.

Another police official in Minsk, said that twenty-two Afghan people were brought to a hospital in the city with gunshot wounds, of which four succumbed to their injuries.

Protests also flared on the Belarusian-Lithuanian border, where hundreds of people, including two journalists, were injured in clashes with Belarusian border guards, witnesses said.

The protests have continued since Monday when police fired rubber bullets and tear gas at hundreds of mainly Iraqi refugees willing to enter Belarus from Lithuania.

Police had said the protests got out of hand as demonstrators marched in Minsk, with many throwing rocks and stones at officers, injuring at least four.

“We fired tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse them. There were 300 protesters. We have also arrested 58 people for violence, most likely they will be extradited to the European Union” police official Aleksandr Sukinsun had told the BelGazeta.

Various reports by several Russian and European think tanks say the Belarusian regime is the most Islamophobic in comparison to other CIS states. According to the Belarusian legislation, no mosque is allowed on the Belarusian soil. This also is one of the major issues why the Russian-Belarusian Union State cannot be finally established.