BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

30/11/2006

Belarusian Opposition Leader Faces Punishment For Foreign-Trip Irregularity

Former opposition presidential candidate Alyaksandr Milinkevich was briefly detained at the Minsk airport on his arrival from Riga on November 29 and charged with deliberately crossing the border with a forged document, Belapan and RFE/RL's Belarus Service reported, quoting Milinkevich's press secretary Pavel Mazheyka. The charge carries a jail term of up to two months or a heavy fine. According to Mazheyka, Milinkevich mistakenly presented the passport of his son, also named Alyaksandr, to Belarusian border guards while he was traveling to the Latvian capital. The Belarusian border guards put an exit stamp in the son's passport and the mistake was discovered only by Latvian border guards. In Riga, which hosted a NATO summit on November 28-29, Milinkevich met with a number of Western politicians, including U.S. President George W. Bush. "Just across the border from here lies the nation of Belarus, a place where peaceful protestors are beaten and opposition leaders are 'disappeared' by the agents of a cruel regime. The existence of such oppression in our midst offends the conscience of Europe and it offends the conscience of America," Bush said in a speech at the University of Latvia in Riga on November 28. "We have a message for the people of Belarus: the vision of a Europe whole, free, and at peace includes you, and we stand with you in your struggle for freedom." JM

Source:

http://www.rferl.org/newsline/2006/11/3-cee/cee-301106.asp