BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

23/11/2006

Belarus opposition leader Milinkevich detained, spokesman says

The Associated Press

MINSK, Belarus: Belarusian Police detained opposition leader Alexander Milinkevich on Thursday during a visit to a province where he was gathering signatures in support of candidates for local elections, his spokesman said.

Milinkevich, who ran against authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko in March and led unprecedented protests following the vote, was detained by police near Vitebsk, 300 kilometers (186 miles) northeast of the capital, Minsk, along with a local opposition activist he was riding with in a car, spokesman Pavel Mazheika said.

Mazheika said the two were detained by police who accused the activist of involvement in a fatal hit-and-run accident in the past, and were taken to the regional police headquarters. He said he had spoken to Milinkevich after he was detained in the evening, but could no longer reach him.

He called the incident "the latest provocation by Belarusian security services, which are trying to hamper the activity of the opposition."

Milinkevich was in the Vitebsk region gathering signatures in support of opposition candidates in local elections to be held in January. He was briefly detained earlier Thursday in three separate towns in the province, Mazheika said.

Milinkevich led protests that drew large crowds to Minsk's central square for a week to protest after the March presidential election, in which the official count gave Lukashenko a third term with 83 percent of the vote in balloting widely rejected in the West.

Milinkevich spent two weeks in jail following an April 26 protest that attracted about 10,000 people.

Lukashenko has ruled Belarus since 1994, quashing dissent, harassing and jailing opponents and maintaining his power through elections dismissed by critics abroad and at home as illegitimate - tactics that have earned him the moniker of "Europe's last dictator" in the West.

Source:

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/11/23/europe/EU_GEN_Belarus_Opposition.php

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