BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

04/08/2006

Belarusian Court Sentences 4 Monitors

MINSK, Belarus (AP) - Four Belarus election monitors detained before March's presidential election were sentenced Friday to prison terms from six months to two years.

The four members of an independent monitoring group were charged with taking part in an unregistered organization that infringed on citizens' rights in this authoritarian former Soviet republic.

The Minsk Central Court sentenced Nikolai Astreiko, the head of the Partnership monitoring organization, to two years. Activist Timofei Dranchuk was sentenced to one year while Enira Bronitskaya and Alexander Shalaiko received six months at the closed-door trial.

The State Department condemned the conviction of the election monitors.

``The politically motivated trial continues a disturbing pattern by the authorities to intimidate civil society activists and to further erode the democratic process in Belarus,'' said department spokesman Sean McCormack.

McCormack urged Belarus to free the four from prison ``and all those being held on politically motivated charges.''

The Partnership received funding from the U.S.-based National Democratic Institute and had planned to deploy independent observers at the elections, but security services detained the four in late February.

``This is a political punishment for those who wanted to openly and legitimately observe the elections,'' Belarus' main opposition leader, Alexander Milinkevich, told The Associated Press. ``It's intended to scare those who defended their right to watch the government's hands to try to prevent massive vote fraud.'' He called the verdict ``extremely cruel.''

President Alexander Lukashenko, dubbed ``Europe's last dictator'' by Washington, won another five-year term in the March election denounced by the opposition as rigged.

Lukashenko, who has ruled the nation since 1994, has quashed Belarus' independent media and jailed critics, as well as accusing the United States and other Western countries of seeking to overthrow him.

The United States and European Union imposed financial sanctions and a visa ban on Lukashenko and other officials following the election, citing widespread arrests and repression of opponents during and after the campaign.

Source:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-5994682,00.html