Deputy Secretary Richard L. Armitage met on November 19 with Belarusian human rights activist Irina Krasovskaya. Ms.Krasovskaya`s husband, Anatoly Krasovsky, was a well-known businessman who provided moral and financial support to Belarusian democracy and human rights advocates until his disappearance in September 1999. She is now in Washington to condemn lack of democracy and human rights in Belarus, to encourage Congress to pass the Belarus Democracy Act, to ask that the U.S. continue supporting democracy in Belarus and pressing the Lukashenko regime to reform, and to solicit assistance in pressing for an independent investigation of her husband`s disappearance.
On November 24 the panel of judges on civil suits of the Supreme Court refused in the satisfaction of the appeal of Hrodna regional public association “Ratusha” on the decision of Hrodna regional court about its liquidation, as www.belngo.info informs.
On November 24, 1996 a referendum initiated by Alyaksandar Lukashenka was carried out.
Thanks to it, the President changed the Constitution, dissolved the Parliament, extended his presidential term and concentrated at hand all possible and impossible authorities. On the anniversary of the referendum the youth organization “Young Front” plans to hold a meeting and an action on Yakub Kolas Square. It will begin at 5.30 pm.
At the General Assembly of the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHF) in Vienna on 13 – 16 November representatives of the 41 national Helsinki Committees and cooperating organizations expressed concern regarding the human rights situation in Chechnya, Central Asia, the Caucasus, the Trans-Dniestrian region of Moldova, the Balkans and Belarus.
Experts from Belarus, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Poland, Russia and the USA will discuss alternatives to prison sentences at a conference that will take place in Minsk on 26 and 27 November. "From the human rights perspective, non-custodial measures help to prevent violations, because obviously people are less vulnerable when they are not in a closed institution," said Cynthia Alkon, who heads the Rule of Law unit of the OSCE`s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR).
Alyaksandr Lukashenka has accused Alyaksandr Kazulin, the former rector of the Belarusian State University (BSU), of failing to restore "traditional, classical" education at this institution. When the BSU was in decline in 1996, the government was looking for "a manager rather than an academic", but the move proved to be counterproductive, the Belarusian leader said on Friday [21 November], speaking at a seminar for government officials. Dr Kazulin is among the suspects in a misappropriation case involving two top executives with a gold scrap remelting enterprise affiliated to the BSU.
Eleven mothers submitted a writ to the economic court of Mahiliow region. All these women are staff of Mahiliow restaurant “Habrava”. They have not got maternity allowance for 4 months already.
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