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rfmcdonaldFrom Reuters:
br23 has links to more commentaries on this arrest. Belarus doesn't appear to be in a pre-revolutionary situation just yet; an Orange Revolution akin to Ukraine's is still far off, for the simple reason that Belarus' opposition hasn't had the freedoms necessary to maneuver. As Belarus' first head of state, Stanislav Shushkevich, said in an interview at Transitions Online, foreign help is necessary if Lukashenko's regime is to end.
A court in ex-Soviet Belarus sentenced main opposition leader Alexander Milinkevich to 15 days in prison on Thursday for leading a big rally the previous day that police said was unlawful.
Milinkevich has become a focus for opposition to President Alexander Lukashenko, accused in the West of crushing dissent in his state lying between Russia and three European Union members.
The EU, which said Lukashenko's landslide re-election last month was blatantly rigged, demanded Milinkevich's immediate release.
Looking calm as the judge read out the sentence, the bearded Milinkevich denied he was guilty of any crime. "This is a political action, a political sentence," Milinkevich told the court. "Leaders of leading political parties are behind bars."
Other leading opposition activists were also given short prison sentences in an apparent crackdown by authorities after about 7,000 demonstrators took part in Wednesday's rally.
br23 has links to more commentaries on this arrest. Belarus doesn't appear to be in a pre-revolutionary situation just yet; an Orange Revolution akin to Ukraine's is still far off, for the simple reason that Belarus' opposition hasn't had the freedoms necessary to maneuver. As Belarus' first head of state, Stanislav Shushkevich, said in an interview at Transitions Online, foreign help is necessary if Lukashenko's regime is to end.
