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		</div><p><a href="http://londonglossy.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/detained-belarus-candidates-freed.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full" title="Alexander Lukashenko won nearly 80 per cent of the vote in the Belarus presidential election" src="http://londonglossy.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/min-detained-belarus-candidates-freed.jpg" alt="Alexander Lukashenko won nearly 80 per cent of the vote in the Belarus presidential election"/></a></p>
<p>Two of the Belarusian presidential candidates who were arrested in the hours after the election have been released.</p>
<p>Seven of the nine candidates opposing leader Alexander Lukashenko were arrested on Sunday and early on Monday, some of them when riot police clashed with a crowd of thousands of demonstrators outside the main government building to protest alleged vote fraud.</p>
<p>The preliminary count gave Mr Lukashenko nearly 80% of the vote, but international observers say the count was seriously flawed.</p>
<p>Candidate Grigory Kostusyev was later released and appeared at a news conference. He said arrested candidate Dmitry Uss also had been released.</p>
<p>The news conference was called to announce an attempt to unify opposition forces, intimidated by the arrest of many of their leaders and hundreds of their activists.</p>
<p>Alexander Milinkevich, who ran against Mr Lukashenko in the 2006 elections that were followed by several days of protests, said activists will try to hold a demonstration outside the jail where many of their colleagues are believed to be held.</p>
<p>Mr Kostusyev said he was held by the KGB, as the ex-Soviet republic&#8217;s security service is still called, and &#8220;interrogated toughly&#8221; but that he was not physically abused.</p>
<p>&#8220;They wanted me to renounce and publicly condemn my colleagues &#8230; but after I refused to do this, they let me go,&#8221; he said.</p>
<p>The arrested include the most prominent challengers to Mr Lukashenko, including Vladimir Neklyayev and Andrei Sannikov. Mr Neklyayev was beaten by men in civilian clothes as he tried to lead a column of supporters into central Minsk for the protest; he taken to hospital but later removed from there by unidentified men who wrapped him in a blanket. Mr Lukashenko confirmed that he was being held in a KGB prison.</p>
<p>In all, more than 600 people were arrested &#8211; Mr Lukashenko gave the figure as 639 &#8211; but Ales Belyatsky of the Belarusian human rights organisation Vesna said the number was around 700.</p>
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