Bialystok police had admitted that the representatives of the Almaz special group of the Belarusian Interior Ministry had visited Poland for training, Polish radio news agency informs. The visit of Belarusian special forces’ representatives to Bialystok were in the spotlight of Polish media.
Colonel Dzmitry Paulichenka, commander of the SWAT, was called the best commander of the interior troops’ brigade in Belarus by the leadership of the Interior Troops. Dzmitry Paulichenka is on the list of the six Belarusian officials who are banned from entering the EU countries as he is suspected of involvement in the disappearance of three opposition politicians and a journalist in Belarus.
The MP group of the European Parliament “Baltic Europe” have sent a letter to the Permanent Representative of Belarus to the European Community and the NATO, Ambassador to Belgium Vladimir Senko with a demand to provide adequate medical treatment to Belarusian political prisoner Mikhail Marynich. The MPs of the European Union also demand release of the former Minister of Foreign Economic Relations, Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador of Belarus, persecuted for his political believes, the LETA agency was informed by the assistant of the European Parliament’s MP Inessa Waidere, Janis Ajzsalnieks.
Integration aspirations of Belarus, especially regarding Russia, have become the reason of pressure on Belarusian state on the part of the EU and USA, told Alyaksandr Lukashenka today at the meeting with the heads of foreign policy structures of the CIS in Minsk, the Belarusian state news agency BelTA informs. “It is our strategic line, and we would not turn away from it,” the head of state underlined.
The lawyer of imprisoned politician Mikhail Marinich told BelaPAN on March 18 that she was denied a scheduled meeting with him. She was told that a meeting with Mr. Marinich "is not recommended in connection with the state of his health." “However, I was told at the same time that Mr. Marinich’s condition had not deteriorated," lawyer Valentina Shikhantsova said. "Next week I will continue demanding a meeting with him.”
Nikolai Lozovik, secretary of Belarus’ central election commission, said on Friday that Sergei Antusevich of the Belarusian Popular Front (BPF) will not be removed from a parliamentary race in Grodno despite the justice ministry’s decision to invalidate the conference that resulted in his nomination.
Dear friends! As expected, the regime is assaulting small business again and again. It would last until the political climate in the state would change. And it would not change unless you yourself would assert your rights and legal interests, take part in all processes in the country, including the political ones. A ten-year experience shows that your passivity and absence of political demands leads to your ruining, new taxes and exactions.
Prosecutors have sent a controversial libel case against former MP Andrei Klimov to a district court in Minsk. The opposition politician is accused of defaming Aleksandr Lukashenko in his three books and a leaflet. In a statement attached to the case file, investigator Aleksandr Pikarev notes that Mr. Klimov, “being an active opponent of the government system in the Republic of Belarus, guided by personal interests, seeking to fake opposition activities through provocative means and aiming to publicly defame the president of the Republic of Belarus, authored, arranged the publication and distribution of books and leaflets containing insults and knowingly false, humiliating information with regard to the president of the Republic of Belarus coupled with the accusation of committing grave crimes.”
Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s plenipotentiary representative, vice-Prime Minister Vasily Dolgolev warned Russian politicians against attempts to make the country Russia’s liege subject. “Some political advisors, Russian chauvinists, must not forget that even in the Soviet Union Belarus was a sovereign state. The union should be equitable. Every attempt to make Belarus a liege subject would lead only to rejection,” he told in his interview to the “Obozrevatel” on Thursday.
On March 17 the chairman of the regional branch of Free Trade Union Valyantsin Lazarenkau was called to police department of Maskouski district of Brest, where a report had been drawn up against him. Mr. Lazarenkau is charged with organizing an unsanctioned meeting of vendors on one of the markets. The leader of the Free Trade Union from Brest is to be put on trial on March 25.
An extensive action in support of political prisoner Mikhail Marynich was carried out by the members of the Mahilyou branch of the Zubr movement. Countless portraits of the well-known politician, former Ambassador and Minister of Foreign Economic Relations were glued in the center of the city. On the fences, poles in busy areas in the Pershamayskaya, Lenin, Piyanerskaya and other streets of Mahilyou, leaflets appeared. They urge the authorities to release Mikhail Marynich from prison. Zubr actions in support of Mikhail Marynich are to continue.
The human rights situation in Belarus got worse in 2004 according to the U.S. State Department`s latest human rights report. Belarusian citizens are denied the right to change their government. An October 2004 referendum removed term limits for the office of president. Both the referendum and simultaneous parliamentary elections failed to meet democratic standards.
Denis Sidorenko, deputy head of the Belarusian delegation to the OSCE, lashed out at the Latvian authorities over a march of SS veterans and young nationalists in Riga, while speaking in Vienna on March 17. The march of SS veterans who fought against Soviet troops on the side of Hitler’s Germany in World War II was sanctioned by the Latvian authorities and took place amidst heavy police presence.
The Belarusian Popular Front (BPF) has filed a complaint with the Supreme Court seeking to invalidate the justice ministry’s warning issued in February over the missed deadline for relocating its chapters.
The Council of Foreign Ministers of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) is to hold a session in Minsk on March 18. The gathering will discuss more than 20 issues, including five initiated by the Belarusian side, Ruslan Yesin, a spokesman for the Belarusian foreign ministry, told reporters on Thursday.
The Francisak Skaryna Belarusian Language Society (BLS) has appealed the justice ministry’s official warning to the Supreme Court. The ministry issued the warning on February 16, accusing BLS chapters of using residential premises for registering their legal addresses, a move banned by the Housing Code.
In Minsk protest rally with demand to release political prisoners lasts for the fifth day. On March 17 vendors from the public association Perspektyva, well-known politicians and other citizens joined Zubr activists in their protest. The protest takes place every day from 6 p.m. to 6.30 p.m. on the October Square in the center of the capital. Its participants demand to release a prominent politician Mikhail Marynich and leaders of the vendors’ movement Valery Levaneuski, Alyaksandr Vasilyeu and Anatol Shumchanka, leaders of the “Young Front” Zmitser Dashkevich and Artur Finkevich, a Zubr activist Maxim Vinyarski and other political prisoners. On Thursday about 60 protesters gathered on the square with portraits of these people.
Russia’s economy ministry has notified Belarus that it will not take measures against the import of white sugar, Ruslan Yesin of the Belarusian foreign ministry’s information office, told reporters in Minsk on March 17.
At the press-conference given by Deputy Minister of Communications and Informatization of the Republic of Belarus Ivan Rak and by Beltelecom director Nikolai Krukovski on March 17, it was stated that mobile operators services prices reduction is expected in the third quarter of 2005.
Dear Colleagues. Remember, please, you are expected to refer to the Charter`97 Press Center when using the site materials. News export , javascript-informer
, javascript-informer
