Belarus ? Government security agents beat and detained an opposition presidential candidate Thursday, two weeks before Belarus has an election expected to keep authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko in power.

Hours later, several thousand opposition supporters massed for an unsanctioned rally in a square in downtown Minsk. A large contingent of riot police stood guard and pushed back the crowd, which chanted “Freedom.”

“Victory will be ours,” opposition leader Alexander Milinkevich – the main presidential challenger to Lukashenko – told his supporters defiantly before the rally dispersed peacefully.

Alexander Kozulin, the opposition candidate who was beaten and detained after he tried to enter a conference chaired by Lukashenko, said he attempted to attend it because “I wanted to tell the truth about the dictatorship we live in.”