Belarus strike leader jailed; opposition activist detained

KY IV, Ukraine— Belarus' authorities on Monday handed a jail sentence to a factory strike organizer and detained a leading opposition activist, part of a methodical effort to stifle weeks of protests against the country' s authoritarian leader after an election the opposition says was rigged.

President Alexander Lukas henko, who has ruled the 9.5- million nation with an iron fist for 26 years, has dismissed the protesters as Western puppets and rejected the European Union's offers of mediation. After a ferocious crackdown on demonstrators in the first days after the Aug. 9 presidential vote that caused international outrage, his government has avoided large-scale violence against demonstrators and switched to threats and the selective jailing of activists to stem the protests.

Anatol y Bokun, who leads the strike committee at Belarus kali, a huge potash factory in Soligorsk, was detained by police Monday and handed a 15-day jail sentence on charges of organizing an unsanctioned protest. The factory, which accounts for a fifth of the world's potash fertilizer output, is the nation' s top cash earner.

The Belaruskali strike committee spokesman, Gleb Sandras, said authorities had managed to halt a strike at the factory that began two weeks ago and all its potash mines are now working. He said agents of Belarus' State Security Committee, which still goes by t he Soviet- era name KGB, had pressured workers to end the strike.