BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

27/04/2006

Opposition leader detained in Belarus

JIM HEINTZ

Associated Press

Minsk - Belarus opposition leader Alexander Milinkevich was detained by police on Thursday and taken to a police station in the capital, his spokesman said.

The detention came a day after Mr. Milinkevich led a protest rally that attracted around 10,000 people, one of the largest turnouts in six weeks of demonstrations against authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko.

There was no immediate word on whether Mr. Milinkevich would face any charges.

At least three other prominent opposition figures were detained in the wake of Wednesday's demonstration against the government's handling of the consequences of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster, which covered about a quarter of Belarus' territory with radioactive fallout.

Vintsuk Vyachorka, leader of the Belarusian People's Front organization and a former official in Mr. Milinkevich's unsuccessful presidential campaign in March, was detained shortly after the rally, said Mr. Milinkevich's spokesman, Pavel Mazheika.

Alexander Bukhvostov, leader of the opposition Trud Party, and Sergei Kalyakin, head of the campaign, were arrested on Thursday, Mr. Mazheika said.

Mr. Milinkevich spearheaded an unprecedented week of protests after the March 19 presidential elections in which Mr. Lukashenko won a third term with more than 80 per cent of the vote, according to official results that the opposition alleges were severely fraudulent.

That week of protests ended when police violently dispersed a crowd that was trying to march to a jail to demand the release of protesters who had been arrested after setting up a small tent camp on the central square of the capital Minsk.

Another opposition presidential candidate, Alexander Kozulin, was arrested in that clash and remains in jail.

Since then, Mr. Milinkevich and his supporters have pushed to keep up the momentum of their drive against Mr. Lukashenko, whom Western countries often characterize as "Europe's last dictator," but they have faced strong repression from authorities.

The opposition was denied permission to use public halls in the city of Gomel this week for a planned conference challenging the government's policy of resettling people in the fallout-affected zones and Mr. Milinkevich was denied permission to hold a public meeting with supporters in that city.

Source:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060427.wbelarus0427/BNStory/International/home