BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

28/04/2006

Milinkevich Jailed In Belarus

Belarussian opposition leader Alexander Milinkevich and three other opposition figures in the former Soviet republic have been sentenced to 15 days in jail after being found guilty of attending an illegal demonstration.

Mr Milinkevich, who came a distant second to President Alexander Lukashenko in Belarus' controversial presidential election last month, was arrested in the capital Minsk a day after leading a peaceful protest rally there.

Three other opposition figures, Communist Party leader Sergei Kalyakin, trade unionist Alexander Bukhvostov and Popular Front party leader Vintsuk Vyachorka, were also given 15-day sentences for taking part in the rally.

The arrests quickly drew fire from the European Union, the United States and NATO. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice condemned Mr Milinkevich's arrest and jailing as "reprehensible."

Mr Milinkevich, 58, denounced his trial as "political" and "typical of a dictatorial regime".

According to Mr Milinkevich, Wednesday's protest was not illegal because the crowd of about 6,000 gathered at a place allocated to them by the city authorities.

"We had asked for permission to demonstrate in two places. We were authorized to demonstrate in one of them, and that is where we went," he told AFP before his trial.

At the demonstration, coinciding with the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear accident, Mr Milinkevich urged supporters to work for the constitutional overthrow of Lukashenko.

International condemnation

Minsk was threatened with new sanctions by the European Union, which has denounced the March 19 presidential election as rigged and already slapped a travel ban on the Russian-backed Lukashenko and 30 key ministers.

"We are following this extremely closely (and) we condemn any detentions that are for reason of having taken part in a demonstration or any other political activity," said a spokeswoman for the European Commission, the EU's executive arm.

"It is important that the Belarussian authorities take note of the fact that further action has not been ruled out," the Commission's spokeswoman for external relations, Emma Udwin, told journalists.

Ms Rice, who was in the Bulgarian capital Sofia for a NATO meeting, told reporters the United States "roundly condemns this act and sincerely hopes that the Belarussian government will accept the will of the international community".

She called on the Minsk authorities to "act within accepted international principles when it comes to the treatment of political opposition."

NATO chief Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, who was also in Sofia, added to the condemnation.

Belgian foreign minister Karel De Gucht, who is the current head of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, demanded the "immediate liberation" of Milinkevitch and his supporters, expressing his "strong concern" about the arrests.

In Germany, the Christian Democratic Union of Chancellor Angela Merkel also demanded Milinkevich's immediate release.

More than 1,000 opposition activists in Belarus have been arrested since the presidential election, most of them given sentences of one to two weeks for attending unsanctioned rallies.

Alexander Kozulin, another key opposition leader and a onetime rival of Mr Milinkevich, has been in jail since March 25, when he was arrested during the break-up of an opposition rally and accused of "hooliganism". He could face several years in prison, lawyers say.

SOURCE: AFP

Source:

http://www9.sbs.com.au/theworldnews/region.php?id=128751®ion=3