Picketing to support Mihail Marinich who had been arrested last week in Minsk was carried out in Riga. Earlier Mihail Marinich worked as ambassador of Belarus in Latvia. The action was organized and carried out by Latvian transatlantic organization (LATO), Latvian national commission “Western Russians” and Latvian-Belarusian association for cooperation. Several persons with portraits of Marinich and posters “Watch out! Lukashism!” handed to the embassy petition condemning dictatorial regime.

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Participants in a meeting of Belarusian journalists on the occasion of World Press Freedom Day adopted a statement in Minsk on 3 May. We publish the abridged text of this document prepared by the Belarusian Association of Journalists [BAJ]. The existence of a free press in Belarus is being threatened nowadays, the BAJ statement reads. The results of a media monitoring exercise conducted by this NGO testify to this fact. "The Information Ministry has suspended five private publications since the beginning of this year. The list of suspended newspapers includes Zvyazda, Vecherniy Stolin and even editions that stay far away from politics Kriminalnoye Obozreniye [Crime Review], Versiya [Version] and Detektivnaya Gazeta [Detective Newspaper]."

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The Belarusian Central Commission for Elections and National Referenda is drafting a decree that will set the date of the elections to the National Assembly`s House of Representatives [parliament`s lower house] of the third convocation. Belapan learnt this from the secretary of the Central Electoral Commission [CEC], Mikalay Lazavik, on 4 May. He said the CEC thinks 17 October to be the best date for the elections. "Local authorities agree with this," Lazavik said. However, he noted, the president [Alyaksandr Lukashenka] will have the final say on the matter. The head of state is expected to have a meeting with the CEC chairman, Lidziya Yarmoshyna, before signing the decree.

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A deck of cards along the lines of the one depicting members of Saddam Hussein`s inner circle has appeared in Belarus, with authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko as a Joker and other figures reviled by tightly controlled country`s political opposition as aces, kings and queens. "Ten years in power. Wants to send Belarus to its death," reads the text on the Lukashenko card in the deck. Lukashenko has increased his authority, stifled dissent and cracked down on the opposition, drawing sharp international criticism and isolated the nation of 10 million sandwiched between Russia and the expanded European Union.

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