Hrodna policemen had restarted an active chase of journalists participated in the protest against growing pressure on independent media. As member of Hrodna branch of the BAJ Andrey Kuselchuk told, on November 16 a police captain, senior inspector of department of crime prevention and protection of public order Pyotr Lyanets visited an office of one of the local public associations. He said he was looking for reporter Iryna Charnyawka, to receive explanation relating participation in the protest rally, and to file a report of administrative offence.
Saddam Hussein’s regime illicitly earned about $21.3 billion by subverting UN sanctions against Iraq, including the UN “oil-for-food” program. That`s double the $10.1 billion the Iraqi president previously was alleged to have siphoned off, investigators of the US Congress said.
The newly elected "house of representatives", the lower chamber of the "belarusian national assembly", at its opening meeting on Tuesday, voted overwhelmingly to appoint Vladimir Konoplyov as chairman. Mr. Konoplyov gained 103 votes against five received by his only rival, Viktor Kuchinsky.
On November 11 the Economic Court of the Brest region had not sustained a suit of Luninets enterprise “Palesyeelektramash” to the newspaper of the “Brestskij Kurjer”.
DISY deputy and chairman of the House Watchdog Committee Christos Pourgourides has urged the Defence Ministry to drop Belarus from its list of potential suppliers of weapons materiel. In a letter addressed to Defence Minister Kyriacos Mavronicolas yesterday, the deputy referred to the planned purchase of night-vision targeting systems for tanks. Three companies are currently vying for the contract: one from France, another from Russia and the third from Belarus.
“Let’s jingle our keys for Lukashenko, we will help unlock Belarus,” is the name of an event to be held on the day of the 15th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution in Bratislava. Everyone is invited to join in from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at Namestie SNP Square on November 17, to demonstrate their opposition to the undemocratic practices of Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko. The organizers want to draw attention to the fact that Mr. Lukashenko does not respect freedom of speech and seeks to dispose of his opponents. In addition he successfully prolonged his election term in an unconstitutional manner in the recent referendum.
On November 15 in the town of Horki, Mahilyow region, the activist of the Belarusian Social Democratic Hramada Dzyamyan Frankowski was summoned to the court and sentenced to three days of administrative arrest. In June the administrative commission of the Horki executive committee fined Dzyamyan. He was charged with “dissemination of leaflets printed in contravention of the established order”.
Valyantsina Saldatava, a hunger striker from Vawkavysk, was placed to the hospital because of ill health. For 19 days a 67-year-old pensioner refused to eat as a protest against the fraudulent elections and referendum results, repressions against the local newspaper “Mestnaya Gazeta” and the administrative dereliction.
Criminal proceedings have been instituted against the editor-in-chief of local independent newspaper “Barysawskija Naviny” by Barysaw office of the Public Prosecutor. As the enactment, the editor-in-chief Anatol Bukas allowed to publish a libel and slander of the state Barysaw newspaper editor-in-chief.
On 12 November judge of Zhlobin District Court Alena Yarmolchyk considered the administrative case against the head of Zhlobin district UCP organization Piatro Mirashnichenka and fined him for “illegal production and distribution of periodicals”.
Lyudmila Gryaznova, deputy chairperson of the United Civic Party (UCP) who was on the ballot in October’s parliamentary elections, has filed a complaint with the committee on credentials in the House of Representatives in a last-ditch attempt to invalidate the vote in the number 110 district in Minsk.
The Parliamentary election and the national referendum in Belarus were conducted with numerous violations of the national electoral legislation and international standards. The falsifications and manipulations committed during the electoral campaign resulted in the wave of fair protest of the country’s citizens. That’s why the authoritarian regime in Belarus started an unheard assault on human rights and liberties.
The parliamentary chambers` constructive activities will continue to be met with support from the Belarusian president, said Aleksandr Lukashenko in his November 15 message of greetings sent to the new “council of the republic” on the occasion of the election of the upper chamber`s leadership.
Four members of an aircraft crew held for a week at the airport of Abidjan, Ivory Coast, may be nationals of Belarus, Andrei Savinykh, spokesman for the Belarusian foreign ministry, told BelaPAN on Monday.
Belarus will not put its critical resolution on the United States’ human rights record to a vote at the UN General Assembly’s 59th session currently held in New York. Since the very beginning, the purpose of submitting the draft resolution to the Third Committee of the General Assembly was not to bring it to a vote, Andrei Savinykh, spokesman for the Belarusian foreign ministry, told BelaPAN. “Everybody understands that the USA`s influence and pressure on all in the world has reached such levels that few countries would dare to vote openly and roundly for the resolution,” he explained.
A group of independent observers who monitored October’s parliamentary elections and national referendum unveiled their findings at Monday’s news conference in Minsk, deploring the campaign as “neither free nor democratic.”
Five Belarusian nationals died in a fire that swept through a construction site some 30 kilometers north of Moscow this past weekend, Russian media outlets reported with reference to the Moscow province’s police department.
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