MINSK -- Activists in Belarus are continuing their fight against the construction of a business center next to a protected memorial area near Minsk where at least 30,000 people were killed and buried by Soviet authorities in 1930s and '40s.
Protesters applauded and chanted "Long Live Belarus!" as bulldozers and tractors started leaving the site near the Kurapaty preserve on the outskirts of the capital, Minsk, on February 27.
However, a foreman told the protesters that the construction works that started on February 16 have been suspended for one day, not abandoned.
Protesters have been at the site around the clock for eight days. They demand an immediate halt to the construction, which they say desecrates the memory of thousands of victims of the Soviet state under dictator Josef Stalin.
Leaders of opposition parties and movements have been participating in the protest.