That Paradise of Socialism, Belarus, faces unrest after rigged election.

Protesters Defy Belarus Authorities

By YURAS KARMANAU
The Associated Press
Tuesday, March 21, 2006; 6:03 AM

MINSK, Belarus -- Temperatures plunged. Then it began snowing. But when dawn broke Tuesday in Belarus, they were still there _ a few hundred determined demonstrators huddled around a dozen small tents on Minsk's central square.

The protesters are trying to mimic techniques that worked in neighboring Ukraine, where crowds of 100,000 or more that jammed the center of the capital for weeks in December 2004, forcing a rerun of a flawed presidential election.