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Police in Belarus on Monday detained several leading opposition activists as well as a handful of protesters taking part in a wave of demonstrations challenging the reelection of Alexander Lukashenko in balloting that they say was rigged, The Associated Press reported.

The Coordination Council, which was set up by the opposition to negotiate a transfer of power, said members Sergei Dylevsky and Olga Kovalkova were detained in the capital of Minsk. Later in the day, the opposition also reported the detention of Alexander Lavrinovich, a strike leader at a major industrial plant.

Police also detained at least five of several hundred people who had gathered in Minsk's Independence Square on Monday, the 16th-straight day of protests, and another five in other cities, activists said.

The source reminds that last week, Lukashenko warned that the opposition council's members could face charges for creating what he described as a parallel government. Prosecutors then opened a criminal inquiry on charges of undermining national security, an allegation rejected by the council.

Several other council members, including Belarus' most famous writer, Svetlana Alexievich, who won the 2015 Nobel Prize in literature, have been summoned for questioning over the protests in an apparent attempt by authorities to intimidate them.