Belarussian border guards detain former parliament speaker

MINSK (Itar-Tass) - Belarussian border guards on Saturday
detained the former speaker of the Supreme Soviet, the country's foremr
national parliament, Stanislav Shushkevich.
He was detained at the Lithuanian-Belarussian border while returning
from Vilnius where he attended a political conference titled 'The
Community of Democracies'.
"After the customs inspection on the Belarussian territory passports
were taken away from a group of twelve students of the European
Humanitarian University /located in Vilnius/ and from myself and we were
detained," Shushkevich told Itar-Tass.
The border officials did not specify the causes of detention but
Shushkevich, who stood at the head of this country from 1991 through 1995,
links the incident to the oppositionist protest actions scheduled for
Sunday, July 3, when the country observes Independence Day.