Pillow fight a national security threat
Armed police wielding batons arrested 70 teenagers and left several others hospitalised in the Belarus capital Minsk after the youngsters staged an unauthorised pillow fight.
The authoritarian former Soviet nation that is regarded as Europe’s last dictatorship decided that the gathering of about 400 teenagers armed with pillows was a threat to national security – and ordered in armed riot police to break it up.
The pillow fight had been arranged by local students as a joke way of commemorating the anniversary of the Battle of Grunwald that saw the defeat of an invasion of German Catholic crusaders in Eastern Europe 600 years ago.
Several of the youths were hospitalised after being clubbed by police in addition to the 70 that were arrested, although government officials have made no comment on the police action.
The US has dubbed Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko as “Europe’s last dictator.”
