The price would be too high, opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya told dpa. "Anyone can go to prison not for 15 days, but for years." Yet society must be further mobilized without masses taking to the streets, she said. "People's safety must come first," said Tikhanovskaya, who is believed by many to have won the presidential election last year and who now lives in exile in neighbouring Lithuania. "There have already been enough victims, too many lives destroyed." The mass protests in Belarus last summer were triggered by the August 9 presidential elections, which were widely considered rigged. Lukashenko was declared the victor with 80.1 per cent of the vote according to the country's electoral commission, and was duly sworn in for a sixth successive presidential term. The anti-Lukashenko demonstrations were brutally suppressed by the police and security forces. According to human rights activists, there are currently more than 600 political prisoners in Belarus. "Demonstrations in the streets are only one part of the protest movement," Tikhanovskaya said. The people of Belarus have not given up and the international community has been mobilized, she argued.