BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

20/12/2007

Belarusian opposition leader sentenced to prison

The Associated Press

MINSK, Belarus: A Belarusian opposition leader was convicted Thursday of violating the terms of his forced labor sentence and sentenced to 18 months in prison, a human rights activist in the tightly controlled former Soviet republic said.

The one-day trial of Artur Finkevich, a leader of the Young Front organization, was held in the eastern city of Mogilyov, where he is serving a two-year sentence of labor and internal exile for graffiti construed as criticism of authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko.

The court found Finkevich, 21, guilty of violating the terms of his sentence and of bad behavior, rights activist Inna Kulei told The Associated Press. He had faced a maximum sentence of three years in prison. Prison is more punitive than labor and internal exile, which requires convicts to live under supervision in a specific city and report to an assigned job, often manual factory labor, but usually allows some freedom of movement.

Kulei said about 30 Young Front activists protested outside the courthouse, wearing shirts reading "Free Finkevich" and chanting "Freedom!"

Rights activists call Kulei one of at least six political prisoners in Belarus, where Lukashenko has been president since 1994, earning the condemnation from the West for his intolerance of dissent and oppressive rule.

The United States is considering new sanctions against Belarus because of its refusal to free political prisoners and allow democratic freedoms. The U.S. administration has listed the former Soviet republic as an "outpost of tyranny" along with other U.S. adversaries such as Cuba and Myanmar.

Source:

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/12/20/europe/EU-GEN-Belarus-Opposition.php

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