The Permanent Council of Pro-Democracy Forces so far has registered four contenders for the single opposition candidacy in Belarus’ 2006 presidential election, Vladimir Strakh, head of the Permanent Council Secretariat, told BelaPAN.
Who`s next? That`s the question strongmen in former Soviet lands are asking themselves nervously after Kyrgyzstan became the third country in the region to be swept by revolution.
The civil initiative “We Want to Know the Truth!” and relatives of the vice-speaker of the Supreme Soviet of Belarus of the 13th convocation, Henadz Karpenka, are planning a public meeting in remembrance of the leader of Belarusian opposition who died under unascertained circumstances. The action is to take place on October Square on April 6 at 6 p.m. representatives of a number of political parties and civil initiatives, and vendors have already declared that they are taking part in this event to pay tribute to the memory of Henadz Karpenka and to express their solidarity with political prisoners and abducted citizens of Belarus.
Action of solidarity with political prisoners was carried out on the 18th of March in Minsk. At 6 p.m. about 20 “Zubr” activists lined up near walls of prison where Mihail Marinich is kept. They were holding portraits of the imprisoned politician in their hands.
District Judge Yelena Ananich will beging hearing a controversial libel case against former MP Andrei Klimov on April 6. The opposition politician is accused of defaming Aleksandr Lukashenko in his three books and a leaflet.
Representatives of Belarus’ pro-democracy forces plan to stage a march in central Minsk on April 26 to mark the 19th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster. The press office of the Belarusian Popular Front said that participants are expected to gather at Freedom Square at 6 p.m. and march along Maksim Bogdanovich Street to Bangalore Square.
Russia, angered by the growing influence of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in monitoring elections and human rights on its borders, is blocking this year`s budget and withholding its own contribution to force changes on the organization, according to diplomats at OSCE headquarters in Vienna.
Authorities in Belarus yesterday jailed about a dozen protesters who called for the resignation of the authoritarian leader of the country, Alexander Lukashenko, at a demonstration last weekend. The central court in the capital, Minsk, handed down sentences of around 15 days in jail to some of the several hundred-strong crowd which gathered outside the president`s office on Friday.
New protesters joined the hunger strike in Vaukavysk. For today 25 people are taking part in the hunger strike. Mikalay Autukhovicyh is on hunger strike for the longest period of time, 14 days. He feels feeble, but he says that he would be able to hunger for a rather long time.
A large-scale test of operational readiness is to take place in the Belarusian army. As the Interfax was informed by the press service of the head of state, this order was signed by Alyaksandr Lukashenka on Monday morning.
eight percent on the average on April 1, said the Belarusian leader’s press office. The average pension is expected to increase to 187,300 rubels ($87). The previous rise in pensions, of nine percent on the average, occurred on November 1, 2004.
The international affairs committee in the House of Representatives of the Belarusian National Assembly on March 28 approved a ratification bill for a Belarusian-Ukrainian agreement on the mutual protection of migrants’ rights.
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