President’s Top Foe Given 15-Day Sentence
A court sentenced the main Belarus opposition leader to 15 days in prison for leading a rally that police said was unlawful.
The European Union, which said President Alexander Lukashenko’s landslide reelection last month was blatantly rigged, demanded Alexander Milinkevich’s immediate release.
Milinkevich denied any a crime. “This is a political action, a political sentence,” he told the court in Minsk, the capital.
Other leading opposition activists were also given short prison sentences after about 7,000 demonstrators took part in the rally Wednesday.
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