The loudest arrest in January was the detention of the director of the Minsk tractor plant Mikhail Leonov. Both the state procuracy and the Committee for state control claim in unison that the former MTP director is guilty of violating the law. Does that mean that the investigators have every ground to believe that Leonov is implicated in running financial transactions, which inflicted a $4mln damage upon the state? “Belorusskaya Gazeta” learnt about the results of the CSC’s examination into the Minsk tractor plant’s activities. The interesting point here is this: according to the inspectors, Leonov’s guilt may only be punished by administrative means, not criminal.

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Officers of the Brest region Committee against economic criminality and corruption detained the director of the Baranovichi milk factory Trofim Gurinovich, charged with getting a $1,5thsd bribe. BelaAPN quotes Brest regional committee press-center as saying that Gurinovich received the funds from a private entrepreneur, who thus won the contest on supplying the equipment for the factory’s store. Gurinovich was detained in his own office right at the moment when the businessman handed over the money to him. Police instituted legal action under article 430/2 of the Penal Code, envisaging 5-10 year imprisonment.

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“The high statesmen determined to strangle the Union of Belarusian writers, paying little heed to the image, that our country enjoys in the eyes of the world’s intellectuals”. Such statement was voiced in a letter, sent to the Prime Minister Gennady Novitsky and Vice Premier Vladimir Drazhin by the famous Belarusian writers Yanka Bryl, Svetlana Aleksievich, Gennady Buravkin, Sergei Zakonnikov, Rygor Baradulin, Anatoly Vertinsky and Vladimir Orlov.

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In the connection with the visit to Belarus of the Parliamentary Assembly of the OSCE special working group on Belarus ZUBR movement addressed the AMG OSCE mission to Belarus with the request to organize a meeting with the head of the delegation Mrs. Uta Zapf. The representatives of the resistance movement intended to tell about repressions towards ZUBR activists and the Belarusian youth as a whole. The ZUBR human rights service has recorded more than 600 cases of repression towards the representatives of the ZUBR. Throughout 2001 ZUBR activists were detained, fined, beaten, expelled from universities, dismissed from job, intimidated and recruited by KGB.

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Zinaida Hanchar, the wife of the Belarusian oppositional politician Viktar Hanchar who disappeared without traces more than two years ago, sent an open letter to the Chair of the Rada (Council) of the Belarusian National Republic, Ivonka Survilla. In the letter she reminded that Viktar Hanchar disappeared in Minsk on September 16, 1999. “You know about his role in the Belarusian politics, and why Alyaxandar Lukashenka considered Hanchar his most dangerous political rival”, - writes Hanchar’s wife in her latter. The full text follows.

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As the president of the Belarusian Association of Businessmen Alyaxandar Patupa said to BelaPAN, some of the scientific state institutions received a letter from the Administration of Lukashenka containing an order to “start creating a system of licensing of all kinds of society surveys, including opinion polls, without delay”. The letter was sent on January 18, but this fact has become known only now. According to Patupa, a special state commission consisting of representatives of a number of state institutions, including the Institute of Social and Political Research, was created.

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In Salihorsk at the large state-run enterprises “Universal”, “Kupalinka”, “Kalinka”, at the construction organizations, medical and educational institutions a preventive strike against abuse of trade union rights by authorities was held on February 1 from 12.00 to 12.05. The miners of the association “Belaruskalij” had not participated in the strike.

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Alyaxandar Lukashenka supports the new way of trade union dues collection, which was ratified by the Council of Ministers verdict N 1804 from December 14, 2001. He stated that on February 1 during appointment of the heads of the local executive institutions. The decree cancelled the transfer of trade union dues without cash.

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The leader of the Maladzechna branch of the Belarusian Popular Front Ales Kaputsky with the help of the UN Committee on Human Rights managed to receive back the money he was fined under unlawful ruling of the court.

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