“Pahonya’s” case will once again be inserted into the annual report of the US State Department on human rights violations, Nikolai Markevich and Pavel Mozheiko were told by the secretaries of the US embassy, who paid visit yesterday to the Osipovichi and Zhlobin colonies.

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Former state inspector of the Committee for bonds of the Belarusian Cabinet Evgeny Kukushkin was sentenced to five years of jail, reports the Belarusian TV company. The man faced criminal charges for trying to sell early this year some data on the activities of a few Belarusian defense companies to the Moscow firm’s representatives.

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The overwhelming majority of Belarusians are opposed to the amendments into the Constitution, which would allow Alexander Lukashenko to nominate himself for the third presidential term – such are the outcomes of the NISEPI poll, conducted recently in Belarus.

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Yesterday in Strasbourg the PACE deputies posed their questions to the chairwoman of the Cabinet of Ministers of CoE, Foreign Minister of Luxemburg Lydia Polfer. Deputy of the Lithuanian Sojm Vatslav Stankevich inquired from her what kind of policy the Council of Europe would be implementing with regard for Belarus. Mrs.Polfer replied that on September 13 in Warsaw the CoE Secretary General Walter Shwimmer called on the Belarusian authorities to implement real political reforms. Such proposals were voiced earlier too. The CoE always wished to maintain sound dialogue with Belarus and some positive changes can be observed there. However, according to her, Belarus is not yet ready to leave self-isolation, which is proved by the scandal over the AMG mission in Minsk.

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Editor of the independent newspaper “Rabochy” Viktor Ivashkevich, sentenced to two years of freedom restriction for alleged libeling the head of state, submitted an appeal against the verdict to the Minsk city court. He told “Interfax” about it on Wednesday. According to Ivashkevich, “the court may well reduce the term to only 1 year, for the amnesty law is still pending”.

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Chairman of the Federation of trade unions of Belarus Leonid Kozik forwarded an address to the Minister of information Mikhail Podgainy with a request to shut down the newspaper “Narodnaya Volya”, said the trade union leader at the Wednesday press-conference. Kozik believes that in one of its publications “Narodnaya Volya” insulted “FTU as an organization and disgraced all of its members”. According to Kozik, “there’s every ground to close the newspaper”.

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Personnel redundancy will hit soon most of the Minsk companies, “Interfax” was told on Wednesday in the Minsk state employment center. The center reports that they plan to reduce the number of staff members at 953 companies. Around 12 thousand will be left jobless. The reason for the move is a “whole complex of economic reasons”.

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