MAHILEU, Belarus, Jun 13, 2001 -- (RFE/RL) Human rights activists and independent journalists face difficult times in Belarus.

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Belarusian ambassador in Latvia Mikhail Marinich intends to run for the presidency, BelaPAN quoted former Administration chief Ivan Pashkevich as saying. The list of members of Marinich’s initiative group will be submitted June 14 to the Central Electoral Committee. His pre-election headquarters, according to Pashkevich, includes also former deputy and former head of the commission against corruption of the State Committee for Control Leonid Sechko, along with the rector of the International humanitarian institute Alexander Alpeev.

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Leader of the Conservative Christian party BPF Zyanon Poznyak mailed to the Central Electoral Committee the lists of his initiative group members, declared during June 13 meeting with journalists CEC chairwoman Lidya Ermoshina.

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Today Alexander Lukashenko will himself submit his group’s registration plea to the Central Electoral Committee. His initiative crew will be headed by the “national assembly’s” member Nikolai Cherginets. Recently Alexander Lukashenko swore that three thousand would volunteer in his initiative team.

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Alexander Lukashenko satisfied Viktor Chikin’s resignation request and dismissed former National TV head on “poor health” motivations. Chikin, who’s also a leader of the pro-presidential faction – Communist Party of Belarus - (CPB) declined to comment on his resignation move. “There’s a good expression – NO COMMENT. Health condition of any professional is secret,” – said Chikin, who had been oftentimes seen drunk in public. BT personnel are inclined to think that it was this habitual drinking of his that so badly affected his health.

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Successor of the Soviet youth komsomol – Belarusian patriotic youth union – called upon Alexander Lukashenko to nominate himself at the forthcoming presidential elections. The organization’s first secretary Yuri Soloviev said at the June 13 press-conference in Minsk that the decision was passed by the BPYU Central Committee plenum, held June 11. The event attracted delegates from all 170 territorial BPYU affiliates. The plenum saw the start of their election campaign “I’m for Batka!” (“batka” is an informal way of referring to one’s father).

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On June 5 the 89th session of the International labor conference opened its session in Geneva. 175 states members of ILO delegated their representatives to the conference. They will also discuss the situation around trade unions in Belarus. However, the Belarusian delegation won’t have the voting right, for the government gravely violated ILO Statute, under which the government is obliged to finance participation in the conference of not only official delegation but also trade unionists, reports the Free trade union’s press-center. ILO chair claims that this fact testifies to the unwillingness of the Belarusian authorities to comply with ILO recommendations on observing trade unions’ rights.

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Two pre-trial jails and 9 prisons are located on the territory of the Mogilev region. According to the regional procuracy, these institutions, though designed to accommodate no more than 8.550 suspects and prisoners, hold 14 thousand at the moment.

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Main problems in fulfilling the union’s program in developing new computer and programming systems are associated with the lack of finances, said at the June 13 seminar in Minsk head of the administrative department of the union’s Standing Committee Sergei Martysuk. According to the official, the “SKIF” computer project is financed out of the union budget, by organizations and companies that are part to it and also at the expense of the third countries.

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At the biggest Warsaw commodity market police, frontier guards and customs officers hunted down sellers of illegal goods. During the operation they detained over 80 CIS nationals. The law-enforcers seized 18 thousand pirate CDs, great amounts of vodka and cigarettes without proper excise tags, videos with child pornography, textile goods. Warsaw police press-service reports that they arrested citizens of Armenia, Ukraine and Belarus. 20 of them are facing procedures, which precede official deportation.

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