BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS
DATE:
18/01/2008
Belarus opposition leader detained: wife
Belarussian security officers on Monday detained opposition leader and former presidential candidate Alexander Milinkevich as he made his way to a rally, his wife told AFP.
"He was detained with two of his aides while he was heading to Victory Square to join a demonstration of small business owners," Milinkevich's wife Inna said from the prosecutor's office where he was being questioned.
She said Milinkevich was officially detained as a witness to the organisation of an earlier rally by small-scale traders and entrepreneurs that took place on January 10.
Belarus has seen a series of demonstrations in recent weeks against the leadership of President Alexander Lukashenko.
The country has been branded by the United States as Europe's "last dictatorship."
On January 21 police beat and arrested several people during a demonstration by the entrepreneurs, who have recently taken the lead in opposition campaigning.
Milinkevich, a mild-mannered physicist and former deputy mayor who speaks several European languages, stood unsuccessfully against Lukashenko in a 2006 election criticised by the West as rigged.
He has remained active both at home and in rallying Western opposition to Lukashenko's administration.
He spent 15 days in jail in 2006 for involvement in an opposition rally.
Another opposition candidate at the 2006 election, Alexander Kozulin, is serving a term of five-and-a-half years for public order offences.
However another opposition activist imprisoned for criticizing Lukashenko said Saturday that he had been pardoned and released from prison.
"I was freed under a presidential pardon," Andrei Klimov told AFP, adding that he believed his release was linked to "a move to free other political prisoners."
The Belarussian leader has been in power since 1994 and changed the constitution to allow him to run for his current third term in office.
Source:
http://www.france24.com/en/20080218-belarus-opposition-leader-detained-wife
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