ARTICLE 19, the Global Campaign for Free Expression, appealed to Alexander Lukashenko raising concerns at the news that the Minsk-based independent newspaper Mestnoye Vremya has been unable to resume activities since its licence was revoked last year.

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Every Thursday Radio Ratsya invites VIP-persons, who answer in an interactive on-line regime the questions, posed to them both by the radio correspondents and ordinary listeners. Questions and answers further get published at Radio Ratsya`s site. The next honorary guest in the studio of the rubric "Chisty Chetverg" will be Andrei Sannikov - former deputy Foreign Minister of Belarus, international coordinator of the Charter`97 civil initiative. You may send you questions to rac@user.unibel.by - Pytanne Sannikavu.

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In the end of last year they replaced the head of the country’s leading news agency. The post of the BELTA director general was taken over by the high-ranking officer from the presidential Security service – colonel Oleg Proleskovsky. The man used to be in charge of press at his previous job. The newly appointed (personally by Lukashenko) BELTA director, sincerely ponders that “journalistic materials must be viewed as a means of social consensus, values and consolidation of the Belarusian society”. He told this in his interview to the newspaper “7 Days”, most exciting extracts of which you may find below.

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Deputy Chief of US Mission to the OSCE Permanent Council Douglas Davidson in his January 16 address to the organization mentioned Belarus, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan and Azerbaijan as the CIS countries, where human rights are massively violated. In particular, when speaking of Belarus, Mr.Davidson said the following:

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Ahead of a trip to Paris upon invitation of the international human rights organization “Amnesty International” Galina Bandazhevskaya had a brief date with her incarcerated husband.

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This week will see the actions of solidarity with the Belarusian scholar Yuri Bandazhevsky in France and Switzerland. They will be run by the western colleagues of the Gomel professor along with the activists from the international human rights organization “Amnesty International”. Next month Basel will host a special medical symposium, where Yuri Bandazhevsky will be named an honored participant.

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“The only chance for Belarus to get out of the swamp is to become candidate for the EU accession,” – assumes Andrus Kubilius, Lithuanian Sojm’s deputy, leader of the conservative parliamentary faction, former Lithuanian Prime Minister (1997-1999).

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West, in its NATO and EU enlargement eastwards, must pay greater attention to the Republic of Belarus, for the collapse of Alexander Lukashenko’s regime might be well around the corner. Belarus still dwells under the despotic yoke of dictatorship. The Council of Europe even notes the deterioration of human rights situation in this former Soviet republic. Lukashenko’s economic model, targeted at the conservation of Soviet socialism, suffered a crushing defeat. The situation is worsened by the country’s international isolation.

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There have been halted criminal lawsuit on the involuntary disappearance of deputy chairman of the 13th Supreme Soviet Viktor Gonchar and businessman Anatoly Krasovsky. Irina Krasovskaya was told this by the head of the investigation group Vladimir Chumachenko.

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