Aleksandr Lukashenko, by his presidential edict, has enacted new regulations governing the Committee for State Security (KGB), according to official information sources.
Vintsuk Vyachorka, chairman of the Belarusian Popular Front Party, has been detained on the checkpoint “Kammeny Log”. He made his way to Lithuania on a coach “Minsk-Vilnius-Riga”. “My passport was seized, and in fact I am detained. Despite of my demands, the border guards have not explained their actions,” the BPF leader told to the “Pahonya”.
Assistant Editor of the “Belorusskaya Delovaya Gazeta” Iryna Khalip was summoned to the Office of Public Prosecutor of Partyzan district of Minsk today. She was to provide explanations concerning her article “Revolution of fallen leaves”, published in the Russian literary and publicistic magazine “Novya ochevidets”. The article was covering the protest actions in Minsk after the official returns of the parliamentary elections and referendum were announced.
EU Foreign Ministers will next week offer Belarus the prospect of a "gradual development of bilateral relations" if concrete moves are taken toward democratization. Foreign Ministers, who meet in Brussels on Monday (22 November), will call on President Lukashenko`s government to "reverse their present policies and to embark on fundamental democratic and economic reforms", according to a draft statement.
Leader of Ukrainian opposition, leader of the bloc “Our Ukraine” Viktor Yushchenko addressed the Ukrainian people before the elections of the President. Viktor Yushchenko expresses sincere gratitude to all voters who came to polling stations on October 31: “Our national self-confidence is restored. We have started to believe in our strength. We have shown to the government that we are not just an electorate but that we are citizens. We are the people! It was not Victor Yushchenko who won on 31 October; it was Ukraine. I am proud because it happened, proud that we have endured.” The “Our Ukraine” leader emphasized that the voting on November 21 is to become a day that would “confirm our victory”.
UN General Assembly would not consider the question about the situation with human rights in Belarus at this session. The decision passed on Thursday by the 3rd Committee of the 59th Session of the UN General Assembly.
The U.S. Embassy regrets the decision by the Belarusian Ministry of Foreign affairs to deny registration to the Counterpart International (CAP) representative office in Belarus. The Embassy does not believe the program activities of CAP have violated any Belarusian laws or regulations.
On 17 November Svislach Town Court fined the member of Belarusian People’s Front Vadzim Saranchukow 70 basic units. On 16 November Vadzim Saranchukow was detained together with Zmitser Mikhaliuk and Maxim Hubarevich on suspicion in distribution of fly-sheets that explained the mechanisms of the falsifications that took place during the Parliamentary election. The detainees were taken to Hrodna Leninski Borough Board of Internal Affairs. Then the police found that Saranchukow was searched for the participation in the commemoration of the Kalinowski brothers that took place on 31 October in the town of Svislach. He had to spend the night at the police and in the morning was taken to Svislach Town Court and fined.
On 17 November the chief editor of the Mestnaya Gazeta newspaper Andrey Shantarovich was summoned to the police for explanations concerning “unauthorized action” – the hunger-strike of protest against the decision of the Ministry of Information to suspend the edition. The police were interested in the details of the hunger-strike and the fly-sheets with information about it that appeared in Vawkavysk.
The Governing Body of the International Labor Organization (ILO) on November 17 considered a report on abuses of trade union rights in Belarus in the framework of its 291st session that opened in Geneva on November 4, the press office of the Belarusian foreign ministry said.
The newly elected chairman of the “national assembly’s” “house of representatives” expressed certainty that Leonid Yerin’s dismissal as chairman of the Committee for State Security (KGB) has nothing to do with the official’s meeting with opposition representatives on October 18.
Most religious communities denied state re-registration are Protestant, Forum 18 News Service has found. But before the deadline (Tuesday 16 November) for obligatory state re-registration under Belarus` restrictive 2002 religion law, most religious confessions – such as the Catholic, Old Believer, Lutheran, Pentecostal, Adventist, Islamic, Jewish, and Jehovah`s Witness communities - told Forum 18 that most of their applications were largely successful. Registration by most non-Moscow Patriarchate Orthodox churches was effectively barred, and some other religious communities are still re-registering. Stressing that registration does not guarantee freedom of worship, one Protestant source in 2003 suggested to Forum 18 that this would happen: "They can reassure the West by saying, `Just look how many organisations we have re-registered`." Aleksandr Kalinov of the State Committee for Religious and Ethnic Affairs told Forum 18 that "96.2 per cent" had successfully re-registered, but that religious organisations which failed to re-register would be liquidated following the deadline.
Alexander Lukashenko, hard line anti-western head of the former Soviet republic of Belarus, called Wednesday for French models to be banished from advertising billboards in favour of the cream of home-grown beauty. "These Frenchwomen with their faces splashed with mud off the road must not monopolise billboards all over the place, including the presidential route to work," he complained to an opening session of parliament.
Cuba intends to develop cooperation with Belarus in the transport sphere and sign an agreement to this effect, Carlos Manuel Pazo Torrado, Cuba`s transport minister, told Igor Poluyan, the Belarusian ambassador to Cuba, during their meeting in Havana on November 16, the press office of the Belarusian foreign ministry reported.
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