BELARUS’ LEADER VISITS IMPRISONED OPPOSITION ACTIVISTS

Belarus' authoritarian president on Saturday visited a prison to talk to opposition activists, who have been jailed for challenging his reelection that was widely seen as manipulated and triggered two months of protests.

President Alexander Lukashenko spent more than four hours talking to his jailed political foes at the Minsk prison that belongs to Belarus' State Security Committee, which still goes under its Sovietera name, KGB.

Lukashenko's office said that “the goal of the president was to hear everyone's opinion.” Among 11 jailed activists who attended the meeting were several members of the opposition's Coordination Council and Viktor Babariko, the former head of a major Russia-owned bank. Babariko aspired to challenge Lukashenko but was barred from the race and has remained in jail since his arrest in May on charges he dismissed as political.

Lukashenko's landslide re-election in the Aug. 9 vote was widely seen as neither free nor fair.

A violent crackdown on peaceful demonstrators in the first days after the vote, in which thousands were arrested and hundreds were beaten by police, provoked international outrage and helped swell protesters' ranks.

The main opposition challenger in the vote, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who left for Lithuania after the election under pressure from authorities, cast Lukashenko's visit to prison as a result of continuing demonstrations and urged keeping up a push for new elections.

“With this meeting, Lukashenko recognized the existence of political prisoners whom he previously dismissed as criminals,” she said in a statement. “Today's event is a result of our pressure.”