Belarusian opposition leader jailed (attended 'unsanctioned' protest)

[UrbScotty]

A Belarusian opposition leader was arrested Thursday and sentenced to 15 days in jail for taking part in an unsanctioned protest rally. Police detained Alexander Milinkevich on Thursday, a day after a large rally and march in Minsk in opposition to authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko.

The rally had received official approval, but police declared a march to the rally site to be unsanctioned. Milinkevich said after his sentencing that he initially thought he was being charged in connection with that march.

But the court told him that police had declared the rally itself to be illegal, he said.

"I came to the meeting ... considering it to have been sanctioned. Police there did not say it had not been sanctioned. Therefore, I think the charge is not just and I do not consider myself guilty," he said.

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-belarus-opposition,0,5457323.story?coll=sns-ap-nationworld-headlines

[Roland99]

1. Are they part of the Coalition to Spread Freedom and Democracy?

[Igel]

2. No, Lukashenko is the last stalinist in Europe.

Pals with Putin, although it's unclear how much Putin likes Lukashenko as a pal for anything other than short-term tactical reasons.

US wants Lukashenka out. L. relies on lots of Soviet-era laws to keep his opposition under control. For example, one newspaper published with the traditional, pre-Soviet spellings; Stalin made that illegal, and Lukashenko was all too happy to use the law, however arcane.

[One Honest Guy]

3. Opposition was sure they wouldn't be touched.

Because the 20th anniversary of Chernobyl disaster was marked yesterday in Belorussia. They had a segment on this on BBC International last night. They showed groups of opposition protesters infiltrating crowds of regular people.

I think the idea was to try and sell the images of 40,000 people marching in opposition to Lukashenko's regime, when in reality the opposition protesters were numbered at around 1200.

Classic CIA stuff. Same thing happened in Serbia, in 1999. Several thousand anti-Milosevic protesters infiltrated nearly 90,000 pro Milosevic supporters.

Make no mistake, your taxes are paying for the upcoming orange revolution , or whatever color they pick, that is coming to Belorussia.