BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

04/12/2006

Police detain Belarusian opposition leader for 3rd time in 2 weeks, his spokesman says

The Associated Press

MINSK, Belarus: Belarusian police detained opposition leader Alexander Milinkevich on Monday for the third time in two weeks, accusing him of drug-trafficking, his spokesman said.

State security service agents said they received an anonymous tip about alcohol and drugs in the car Milinkevich was riding in the city of Belozyorsk, according to his spokesman, Pavel Mazheyka.

The city is about 270 kilometers (165 miles) southwest of the capital, Minsk.

The police forced Milinkevich and two other opposition activists to the local precinct house, where they remained even though a search of the car did not reveal any drugs or liquor, he said.

Milinkevich has been traveling around the country before local council elections scheduled for next month. He was detained earlier because he allegedly resembled someone who had been in a car that had fatally run over a pedestrian. He was then detained upon arrival at the Minsk airport for allegedly carrying a forged passport after traveling to Latvia to meet with U.S. President George W. Bush at a NATO summit last month.

Milinkevich, the main opposition challenger to authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko, led unprecedented demonstrations that drew large crowds to Minsk's central square for a week to protest after the March vote, 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.

The United States on Monday called on the Belarusian authorities "to free all persons being held on politically motivated charges," the U.S. Embassy said in a statement.

U.S. Ambassador Karen Stewart met with the wife of another opposition presidential candidate, Alexander Kozulin, who is serving a five and a half-year prison sentence and is in the 46th day of a hunger strike. Irina Kozulina said her husband had lost 40 kilograms (nearly 90 pounds). His lawyer and family have been forbidden with meeting him, she said, adding, "we fear the worst."

"It is tragic that the oppression of the regime has forced Belarusians to take drastic measures to express their views," the embassy statement said.

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/2006/12/04/europe/EU_GEN_Belarus_Opposition.php