Minsk - Police detained 10 people on Sunday at a candlelight vigil outside Belarus’s KGB headquarters in support of opposition leaders who have been jailed since election-night protests more than a month ago.
After the flawed December 19 vote, mass protest rallies rocked the capital, Minsk, and more than 700 people were arrested in a violent crackdown. Twenty-five people are still being held, including three men who ran against authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko. They face up to 15 years in prison.
Several dozen people took part in Sunday night's protest, which lasted for about five minutes before police arrived to break it up. Protesters stood quietly holding candles and pictures of those in jail.
“The repressions are continuing and the European Commission must see this,” said Antonina Khotenko, who was among those detained. “Lukashenko must get what he deserves.”
The United States and European Union have raised the prospect of new sanctions against Belarus in response to the arrests.
EU foreign ministers meet on Monday in Brussels and are expected to discuss imposing travel restrictions on Lukashenko and other Belarus officials. Lukashenko has threatened to retaliate if they do.
In an apparent attempt to head off sanctions, former presidential candidate Vladimir Neklyayev and prominent journalist Irina Khalip were released on Saturday from the KGB jail but remain under house arrest.
Khalip is the wife of candidate Andrei Sannikov, who remains in jail. The government had threatened to place their three-year-old son in an orphanage, but then agreed to allow Khalip's mother to serve as legal guardian.
Under Lukashenko, Belarus has retained a Soviet-style state-controlled economy while also repressing opposition activists and independent news media. The West has pushed for reforms and offered economic incentives, but Lukashenko has rebuffed them, choosing to tilt strongly toward Russia, on which the country relies for oil and natural gas.
Lukashenko was declared the winner of the December election with nearly 80 percent of the vote, but international observers strongly criticised the count. - Sapa-AP