The heads of over 20 Belarusian public organizations – activists of the “Our Solidarity” motion, signed their Address to the foreign parliamentarians, in which they tell the deputies about the “new anti-constitutional campaign of persecuting the structures of civil society and independent press” in Belarus. The signatories plead with MPs to condemn this policy and influence the Belarusian government.

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The meeting of the teachers of the National Humanities Lyceum and the parents’ group with the officials from the Education Ministry and the Committee for education of the Minsk city hall, organized on July 1, didn’t help clarify the situation with this educational institution.

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Case consideration on the lawsuit, filed by the “Marat” company against the Information Ministry over the cancellation of reprimand, issued against “BDG” supplement “For special use”, was put off till July 8. Such a decision was passed on July 1 by the Supreme Economic Court’s chair Valery Shobik.

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The Justice Department of the Grodno regional executive committee forwarded a letter to the Justice Ministry, pleading with them to step up adequate measures against the public organization “Independent society of legal research”. The Department didn’t like the fact that during the judicial process on the case of the Grodno organization “Ratusha” the society presented defendant’s interests in the Grodno court.

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Belarus, contrary to the preliminary agreements, didn’t introduce on July 1 the cashless Russian ruble into circulation on the territory of Belarus. The long promised action has been again put off indefinitely. The official reason for the disruption of their plans is the “time-consuming technical procedure of coordinating that decision”. In fact, that means that Minsk once again changed its mind for no reason.

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Belarus can never count on membership in the Council of Europe for as long as it doesn’t improve situation with mass media and human rights, deems PACE member, deputy of the Lithuanian Sojm Vatslav Stankevich. According to him, PACE is particularly alarmed by the media situation in Belarus, especially the suspension of “BDG” newspaper and its monthly supplement “BDG: for special use”, as well as “Predprinimatelskaya Gazeta” and “Echo”.

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EU representatives in Belarus will file an official protest against the defilement of the Jewish cemetery, which has a historic value. EU diplomats intend to travel to Grodno on Wednesday, one day before the EU intends to voice an official statement in Vienna, denouncing Belarus for the desecration of a 300-year old cemetery, where they are building a soccer stadium right now.

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Member of the Conservative-Christian BPF Party Alexander Solovyan, permanent participant of the pickets opposite the so-called “Blue house” in Vitebsk, addressed the office of the Zheleznodorozhny district court in order to receive last judicial rulings: along with Vladimir Pleschenko he was convicted for collecting signatures under Sergei Popkov’s motion to invalidate the “union treaty”. However, the secretary pleaded with him to hold on a bit, and brought a whole pile of court’s verdicts. According to these documents, for his part in the pickets in course of the last five months Alexander Solovyan had been thrice fined in his absence. The overall sum of the sizes amounts to 6mln195thsd rubles.

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Representatives of the Lebanese business circles are considering an opportunity to broaden their cooperation with Belarus in the sphere of tourism, as far as their interaction in this area seems to be the most promising of all, said in an interview to the BELTA correspondent the honorary consul of the Republic of Belarus in Lebanon Mr.Eli Sarkis.

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Although the political passions, running high in the period of local elections in March, cooled down, the problem of elections again attracts the attention of politicians, journalists, analysts and diplomats both in Belarus and abroad. Many parties and public organizations are already preparing themselves for the upcoming parliamentary elections next year, while the most far-sighted think of their strategy of engaging in presidential elections in 2006. In this light it is essential that we reconsider the specific peculiarities of electioneering in our country.

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