Belarus on Tuesday jailed 600 demonstrators detained during a mass rally against the re-election of President Alexander Lukashenko, defying fierce Western condemnation of the bloody crackdown. Police officials said the protesters would be held for up to 15 days while prosecutors probed their alleged involvement in "organising mass disturbances" - a crime that carries a sentence of up to 15 years.
"It is not a fact that all of them will be released after 15 days," Minsk police spokesman Alexander Lastovsky told AFP. Lukashenko vowed Monday to come down hard on all those responsible for taking part in Sunday's unauthorised demonstration against his regime. "That is it," Lukashenko declared in a nationally-televised press conference. "Our country will have no more senseless, muddle-headed democracy."
"I warned you," he added. "Kids - you are messing with the wrong guy." The wave of arrests left relatives searching for loved ones in the city's prisons, with groups scouring the long list of names posted on the walls of one facility and waiting outside its entrance gate in hopes receiving any news.
Once labelled as the last dictator of Europe by Washington, Lukashenko was re-elected to a fourth term Sunday with nearly 80 percent of the ballot on Soviet-style turnout of more than 90 percent. His nearest rival received less than three percent of the vote in an election that the challengers vowed to contest even before the results became official. Seven of Lukashenko's nine election rivals were arrested in what appears to be a massive crackdown on the opposition, with five candidates beaten up by riot police.
Three of them - Ales Mikhalevich, Vladimir Nekliaev and Andrei Sannikov - were being held by the KGB, while two others - Rygor Katusev and Dmitry Uss - were released under orders not to leave the city, their offices said. Two more candidates - Nikolai Statkevich and Vitaly Rymanshevsky - are still believed to be in police detention. The Belarussian justice ministry also threatened to ban parties and movements that took part in the protests, with the warning affecting organisations headed by two of the challengers.