Today Secretary of Russian Security Council Vladimir Rushailo comes to Belarus on an official visit. Talks and negotiations with the political authorities, State Secretary of Security Council Henadiy Nevyglas, and ministers are on the agenda. As expected, today he will be received by the Prime Minister Sergey Sidorsky.
Last year, according to the courts’ decisions, 51 public associations were liquidated for violation of the current law, as Minister of Justice Viktor Holovanov reported at the ministerial collegiate. The minister said that last year control over public associations, political parties and trade unions was strengthened. 81 public associations were subjects to substantial check ups. As the result 810 written warnings were made, it exceeds the amount of the warnings made on 2002 six times, as BelTA reports.
At the PACE session in Strasburg “the Belarusian issue” will be discussed twice. On January 28 the PACE Committee on Legal Issues will hear the Cyprus deputy Christos Pourgourides’ report on disappearances of the political opponents in Belarus. On January 30 the possible returning (or non-returning) of the status of specially invited to the Assembly is on the PACE agenda. On January 13, 1997 the PACE bureau froze the Republic’s membership in connection with the referendum on the Constitution. At the plenary session the issue is more likely to be discussed in March, as “The Observer” reports.
Starting from Monday, January 26, the functioning of the web site www.charter97.org has been resumed in whole. Even though the distributed Ddos-attack is still going on, the mechanism of site defense works in a normal regime. According to our hosting provider’s information, about 400,000 computers are engaged in attacks; about 55,000 of them are active. The professionals working on the site’s defense say that the level of the attacks is very high, as well as the technical potential. So we managed to overcome the results of the attacks going on for six days already only yesterday’s night. The reason for all these events was publishing the article “Belarusian routs of Child Porn sellers.”
The Association of the Belarusian Jewish unions and communities is worried about a new turn in regards to the International Humanities College of the Belarusian State University. On January 22 the IHC administration and the management of the Association got a copy of the decision of the scientific board of the Belarusian State University on the reorganization of the institute into the Humanities and Arts Department. The International Humanities College is the only higher institution in Belarus, which got a Judaistics Department, where students study Jewish history, culture and religion, Hebrew and Yiddish, as well as problems of international and interreligious relations. “The IHC closure will mean the liquidation of higher education in Judaistics,” said Basin.
The public utility company “Mozyr communalnik” requires from the leader of the registered in the USA “The Universal Association of the Belarusian Jews”(UABJ) Yakov Gutman the reimbursement for the demolition of the memorial for self-immolated victims. In November 2003 Gutman without approval from Mozyr authorities mounted between houses 9 and 11 in Kirov Street a memorial for those Jews who burnt themselves in fall 1941. Among them was his grandfather Nisel Gutman. However, in December 2003 by the decision of the local authorities the memorial was demolished. After that Gutman carried out two non-sanctioned pickets at the President’s Administration and went on a weeklong hunger strike “against the policy of state anti-Semitism in Belarus.”
The chairman of OAO “Gazprom” board of directors Alexey Miller and OAO “Beltransgas” director general Petr Petuh will proceed with the talks on gas supplies to Belarus in Moscow on Tuesday. As “Gasprom” press release runs, they came to no agreement the day before. According to “Interfax”, the Belarusian representatives agreed to buy Russian gas for the fuel prices of the fifth Russian region. “The period of romanticism is over, our Belarusian colleagues came up with more realistic suggestions for supplies’ conditions. However, in spite of the certain progress in negotiations, we still have not come to agreements suitable for both the sides. The talks will be extended,” said Miller after the meeting.
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