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| - Belarusian riot police on Monday detained two members of the opposition's Coordination Council which is calling for a peaceful handover of power after a disputed presidential poll. The opposition named those detained as Sergei Dylevsky, a tractor plant worker who has come to prominence as a strike leader and Olga Kovalkova, a member of main opposition challenger Svetlana Tikhanovskaya's staff. Allies of Tikhanovskaya formed the Coordination Council this month to oversee efforts for a peaceful transition of power from strongman Alexander Lukashenko, who rejects her claim to have won the election amid widespread rigging. Its members include Nobel Prize-winning author and outspoken Lukashenko critic Svetlana Alexievich and former arts minister Pavel Latushko. "We are under pressure. This morning two members of the presidium of the Coordination Council were detained," another member, Liliya Vlasova, said at a press conference. Vlasova, a lawyer and mediator, said Dylevsky and Kovalkova are accused of illegally organising a strike, an administrative violation. "We consider these actions of the authorities are absolutely unlawful," Vlasova said, adding: "We are negotiators." Vlasova said that investigators had also summoned her for questioning later Monday. The detentions came after huge crowds of protesters held an unsanctioned march through the capital Minsk on Sunday. A mobile phone video by a witness posted by news site Tut.by apparently showed Dylevsky and Kovalkova being led to a police van, watched by uniformed workers from the Belarus tractor plant. A colleague of Kovalkova from the opposition Christian-Democrat party, Denis Sadovsky, told AFP that riot police detained the two activists at the entrance to the tractor plant. tk-am/mm/txw
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