BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS
DATE:
27/04/2006
Two opposition leaders arrested in Belarus on day of protest in Minsk
Minsk - Two well-known opposition politicians were arrested in Belarus on the same day that about 10,000 demonstrators in Minsk took advantage of state-run Chernobyl memorial activities to organize a mass protest against the country's authoritarian government.
While the chairman of the United Civic Party, Anatoli Lebedko, was released Wednesday night, the head of the Belarusian Popular Front, Vintsyuk Vyachorka, was believed to remain in police custody.
Vyachorka was arrested in Minsk after Wednesday's demonstration by several men in civilian clothes and taken to an unknown location, the human-rights organization Charter 97 said.
According to colleagues of opposition leader Aleksander Milinkevich, police took 12 people into custody Wednesday night, including three protestors from neighbouring Ukraine.
Earlier, crowds at the opposition demonstration in the city centre had grown by the hour despite a police ban on marchers deviating from areas set aside for remembrances to mark the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear-reactor accident, just across the border in Ukraine and upwind from Belarus.
Government-sponsored street ceremonies on the anniversary of the April 26, 1986, disaster have over the years become an annual protest event for Belarus' much-repressed opposition, which otherwise is practically forbidden rights of public assembly.
Milinkevich led the march despite police warnings earlier in the day that if he participated in anti-government demonstrations, he would be arrested.
The crowd chanted 'Long live Belarus!' 'Freedom!' and 'Fairness!' Demonstrators were peaceful and avoided conflict with a powerful police contingent backed by armoured vehicles that was present.
Belarusian police late last month used clubs and tear gas to disperse opposition demonstrations in the wake of a presidential election returning the country's leader, former collective farm boss Aleksander Lukashenko, to office.
The demonstrators Wednesday vowed to force out Lukashenko.
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