ZUBR movement expresses solidarity with the editorial board of the “Belorusskaya Delovaya Gazeta” and “BDG: for special use” in connection with the Information Ministry’s ruling to halt their publication. “Annihilation of “BDG” is part of the campaign, unleashed by Lukashenko’s regime against free media, which is now turning into an ideological cleansing,” – reads the statement: “The rotten regime of Europe’s last dictator lost population’s support, feels the inevitability of soon collapse and coming changes. By shutting the last remaining independent editions, including “BDG”, the regime reveals its own powerlessness and fearfulness”.

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Scandalous situation around the appointment by the Ministry of education as head of the Belarusian lyceum of an unknown principal of one of Minsk schools Tatiana Scherbachevich, who can’t even speak Belarusian, is commented upon by Charter’97 coordinator Dmitry BONDARENKO.

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Eight congressmen and senators, all members of the US Helsinki Commission, forwarded a letter to the US president George Bush with a call to discuss certain human rights issues with his European colleagues during his forthcoming visit to Poland and Russia, due to commence on May 30, 2003, reports BelaPAN.

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Borisov town hall passed a decision, banning from June 1 the sales in the state companies of the periodic production and books without a special license.

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Independent edition “NGS” resumed publication, said the newspaper’s founder Romuald Ulan. According to what he said, they couldn’t resume operation until they found a new publisher – “one of the structures in Lida, which preferred to remain anonymous in order to avoid problems in its activities”.

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On May 28 the Brest regional court considered the case on the liquidation of the public association “Agency of regional development “Varuta” (Baranovichi) and ruled to suspend its operation upon the mutual consent of the sides. Justice department of the Brest regional hall acts in the plaintiff’s capacity.

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Today the Moskovsky district court of Minsk finished case consideration of the lawsuit, filed by the People’s March organizers Ludmila Gryaznova, Vladimir Kobets and Andrei Sannikov against the Minsk city hall. The People’s March was held in Minsk on March 12, 2003. The organizers complain over the actions of the deputy mayor Petrushin, who, by forbidding the rally, denied thousands of Belarusians their constitutional rights. In course of the deliberations it turned out that the city hall representative Eduard Tomilchik, upon Petrushin’s consent, prepared a letter banning the action on March 5, while the meeting with the organizers was held on March 7. In other words, they summoned them not in order to discuss the format of the action but rather to hand in the prepared response. Although the city hall’s response contained clear contradictions, judge Elena Rudnitskaya declined to satisfy the plaintiffs’ plea and confirmed the legality of the city hall’s decision.

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Alexander Lukashenko came up with the initiative to ban the heads of banks, organizations and companies to be called presidents. The concomitant legislation amendments will be drafted by the Justice Ministry by August 1, 2003. They are also considering placing a similar ban on writing the word “president” with a small letter.

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The meeting of the Parental committee of the Belarusian lyceum and the newly appointed director of this institution Tatiana Scherbachevich in the morning of May 29 was quite short. When three dozens of parents entered the director’s office, Mrs.Sherbachevich welcomed them with plain Russian “good morning!”. And in course of their whole conversation she didn’t say a word in her native tongue. The new director of the BELARUSIAN lyceum, where children from all over Minsk and suburbs are learning how to speak BELARUSIAN, doesn’t speak it at all.

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The Ministry of education of Belarus appointed to the post of a director of the Belarusian humanitarian-educational lyceum of Yakub Kolas Tatiana Scherbachevich. That means that its founder Vladimir Kolos is no longer the headmaster at the lyceum. The new director used to work as a school principal and has no clue about lyceum’s curriculum and educational system.

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The Ministry of information suspended for the period of three months the issue of the “Belorusskaya Delovaya Gazeta” and its attachment “BDG: For special use”. The Ministry passed this ruling after the procuracy’s recommendations to immediately halt the newspaper’s publication. The Ministry refers to the article 16 of the Law on press, claiming that in the articles “Patron’s image” and “Where are Leonov’s millions?” the authors defame Alexander Lukashenko’s honor and dignity. One can only read fresh “BDG” issue on-line now at www.bdg.by. Today at 10a.m. the newspaper’s journalists will convene for a special meeting and run at 11a.m. a press-conference for the journalists. We’ll keep you updated on its course.

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