Complex operational and tactical military exercises “Shield of Fatherhood-2004” is to check armed forces’ combat readiness in the conditions when NATO armed forces are placed by Belarusian borders, told Alyaxandar Lukashenka. “Changes in the stationing of the NATO troops by the Western borders of Belarus cannot be viewed by us as a stability factor in our region,” told Lukashenka on Thursday at a meeting where the drills plan was discussed. As said by him, “it leads to tension and complication of military and political position of Belarus”.
Belarusian and foreign journalists, even those who are accredited by the “House of representatives”, had not been allowed to enter the parliament building since morning. Obviously, it is connected with the hunger strike of MPs from the deputy group “Respublika” Valery Fralou, Uladzimir Parfyanovich and Syarhei Skrabets, which was started today in their offices.
Reporters Without Borders voiced concern today that the newspaper Narodnaya Volya might have to close after a Belarus supreme court panel confirmed a 50 million ruble (20,000 euros) damages award against it for libelling former state TV chief Yahor Rybakov.
The KGB (State Security Committee) refused to give back $90,000 to Mikhail Marynich, which where confiscated before the arrest. The investigator told to Mikhail Marynich that hisrequest couldn’t be complied with. He had not informed about the reasons. Meanwhile, Marynich’s lawyers pay attention to the absence of any investigation actions with this money, and are trying to release the oppositionist through the court.
Three MPs of the “Respublika” group went on unlimited hunger strike, which they plan to carry out in their offices in the building of the Parliament. The aim of the protest is to make changes in the Electoral Code. Valery Fralou, Uladzimir Parfyanovich and Syarhei Skrabets believe that the changes must concern forming of election commissions, which, according to them, should be “open and understandable for every citizen, and to guarantee participation of different political parties and movements”, to widen the observers’ authority, to annul the early voting. Besides, the deputies demand to release former minister, the 12th and 13th Supreme Soviet MP, Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador of Belarus Mikhail Marynich. “We hope that serious attention would be paid to that, it would make many people think. We see no other means. First of all we address Belarusian Mps, so that they at last realized their responsibility for the country,” told on of the leaders of the “Respublika” Valery Fralou to the press center of the Charter’97. General Fralou told that they are not going to leave their working places. Today they brought toothbrushes, towels, slippers and house clothes with them. A civil commission headed by a well-known public figure Uladzimir Kolas is observing the hunger strike.
This week former rector of Homel Medical institute who was announced a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International, was taken from Minsk prison to so-called “free settlement” to one of former military prisons in Hrodna region. This information was given to Radio Svaboda by his wife, Halina Bandazheuskaya.
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