The “house of representatives” passed during its April 2 plenary meeting a statement on US war against Iraq. The deputies express deep alarm over the combat actions. “Military activities against the sovereign Iraq were unleashed without the UN Security Council’s consent and therefore must be regarded as an act of aggression,” – reads the statement. The “MPs” note that Iraq posed no danger to the alliance’s member-states, while the USA initiated this war to hold sway over rich oil resources and establish their hegemony in the world.

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Statement by the Charter’97 coordinators Andrei Sannikov, Ludmila Gryaznova and Dmitry Bondarenko was circulated today at PACE session in Strasbourg. Recently the Belarusian politicians were set free from jail where they spent 15 days for organizing the People’s March. In their address to the European parliamentarians, they claim that endowing Belarusian parliament with the special guest’s status will bring about escalation of the regime’s repressions. Following you may read the full text of their statement.

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Ahead of the forth year since the demise of Gennady Karpenko (April 6) the United Civil Party addressed the city authorities with a proposal to rename one of the Minsk streets after Gennady Karpenko. Such an offer is contained in a letter, forwarded by the UCP chair Anatoly Lebedko to the chairman of the Minsk city hall Mikhail Pavlov.

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Trial over the chairman of the Striking committee of entrepreneurs Valery Levonevsky will be held today at 12 o’clock. Chairman of the Striking committee of Belarusian entrepreneurs Valery Levonevsky was arrested yesterday morning for his part in the People’s March “For Better Life!” on March 12.

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Among CIS member-states one can find those that are openly supportive of the anti-Iraqi coalition and those, which do that in secret. There are also those, which are cautiously calling into question the military campaign and those, which wholeheartedly curse the warmongers. But there’s only one country – the Republic of Belarus – whose leader demonstratively upholds Saddam Hussein, wrote the journalist of the German “Frankfurter Allgemeine” Markus Vener.

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International Committee for the protection of journalists’ rights (CPJ) published in New-York its annual report on the crackdown on the freedom of speech worldwide. The text of report reads that in the year 2002 there significantly rose the number of detained journalists, as well as their killings. In all of the former Soviet Union’s territory the worst situation is observed in Belarus and Turkmenistan. In May last year CPJ blacklisted Belarus among top ten violators of the freedom of speech in the globe.

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