Lithuanian Foreign Ministry has requested additional information about the attempt to smuggle $200 thousand to Belarus by a Lithuanian citizen, Novosti news agency informs with reference to the news radio station "Ziniu radijas".
A district police department in Grodno has rejected a complaint by a staff writer with the newspaper Zhoda against members of one district and three precinct election commissions who barred her from polling stations during a repeat parliamentary vote held in the district on March 20.
For the last 17 months Russian president Uladzimir Putin has suffered a number of failures in the front of foreign policy, in Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova and Kyrgyzstan, has written the newspaper “The Moscow Times” today. In this connection Russian authorities are loosing their hope that the CIS would act and be a structure of Moscow’s influence on the post-Soviet territory, the newspaper notes. Putin could improve his spoiled political image by addressing the Western leaders with a daring proposal – to help in solving a so-called Belarusian problem.
“Investigation of the cases of disappeared people in Belarus has become one of the essential demands of the third resolution of the UN commission on Human Rights. It gives us a hope that soon we are to find out what had happened to our loved ones in reality,” stated the leader of the civil initiative “We Remember”, member of the Council of Civil initiatives “Free Belarus” Svyatlana Zavadskaya, commenting on the adoption of the resolution by the UN Committee on Human Rights top the Charter’97.
On April 18 the ARTICLE 19, the Global Campaign for Free Expression, sent a letter to Belarusian president Alyaksandr Lukashenka. The organization calls upon him to take all necessary measures to ensure that Belarus complies with its international responsibilities as a State Party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and brings its legislation and practice in line with international standards of freedom of expression.
Ex-MP Sergei Skrebets calls the allegation about smuggled cash on Belarusian TV provocation and psychological pressure. “It is an obvious act of intimidation, so called demonstrative whipping for all dissenters,” told the politician in his interview to the Charter’97 press center. “I am not actively engaged in politics now, besides, a criminal action was initiated against me before. If they wanted to imprison me, they had a pretext already. I think that they wanted to intimidate others on my example. The total lawlessness accompanying the events is stunning, as well as the blatant lies on TV, as they had no proofs. It turns out that anything could be said about a person in programs of Belarusian TV channels”. As we have informed, on April 17 the First National Channel (BT) TV informed that the law enforcers had detained a courier delivering from Lithuania to Belarus a substantial sum in foreign currency for the support of the political activities of Sergei Skrebets. According to the Belarusian TV, the delivery man had allegedly brought from Vilnius 200,000 USD to Minsk.
Opposition politicians dismissed as absurd and ridiculous Sunday’s TV reports about $200,000 in cash allegedly smuggled from Lithuania to Belarus for financing political activities of ex-MP Sergei Skrebets.
“It is the third consecutive resolution adopted by the UN Commission on Human Rights, which means the absence of progress in the situation with human rights in Belarus. I think that the third repeated condemnation of the Belarusian regime in the sphere of human rights on the part of the most reputable international body in this sphere has finally confirmed the repressive character of the Belarusian regime and the necessity to take immediate action internationally to defend human rights and fundamental freedoms in Belarus,” told Andrei Sannikov, a coordinator of the civil initiative “Charter’97”, member of the Council of Civil initiatives “Free Belarus”, commenting on adoption of the harsh resolution by the UN Commission on Human Rights condemning political situation in Belarus.
The chairman of the National organization of Young Democrats of Poland (NO YDP (Mlodzi Demokraci)) Janek Artymowski is certain about that. At the press conference with Participation of the Young Democrats of Poland (youth branch of the Polish party Platforma Obywatelska (Citizens Platform)) Janek Artymowski underlined: “In Poland we not only have information about the events in Belarus, but the understanding of the real situation. That is why the important mission for Poland is the work in the EU for conducting a more resolute policy as concerns Belarus. At present the position of the EU towards Belarus is starting to change, and to a large extent owing to the EU enlargement and joining of the new Eastern European members”.
The second point on the agenda of the informal meeting of the Ministers for Foreign Affairs of the European Union, which was held at the Cha’teau de Senningen in Luxembourg on 15 and 16 April 2005, was the situation in Belarus.
As a preview of journalism`s next generation, Insight presents the work of six students in Tom Engelhardt`s writing class, "Strong Words," a part of the editing workshop at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. The writing and photographs of a seventh student, Keli Dailey, appeared two weeks ago; she explored the Martin Luther King streets across the country. Contact us at insight@sfchronicle.com.
The Supreme Court in Belarus ordered the closing down of the ex-Soviet state`s best known independent polling institution on April.15. The oder came months after it angered authorities over an exit poll. The Independent Institute of Socio-economic and Political Research caused consternation in the administration of President Alexander Lukashenko by suggesting in October that Mr. Lukashenko had won less than 50-per-cent support in a referendum, reported Reuters.
The UN Human Rights Commission’s resolution condemning human rights violations in Belarus is not targeted against the country. It is a friendly gesture by UN member states, Adrian Severin, UN special rapporteur on Belarus, told BelaPAN.
On the week end the Belarusian TV informed that the law enforcers had detained a courier delivering from Lithuania to Belarus a substantial sum in foreign currency for the support of the Belarusian opposition. According to the Belarusian TV, the delivery man had allegedly brought from Vilnius 200,000 USD to Minsk. They were allegedly intended for one of the leaders of the “Respublika”, former deputy of the” chamber of representatives” Syarhei Skrabets (Sergei Skrebets).
The European Humanities University (EHU), which was based in Minsk and closed down by the Belarusian authorities in July 2004, will reopen in Vilnius on June 9, BNS reported.
Ukraine has no state debts to Belarus, a source in that country’s foreign ministry commented to Ligabiznesinform, a Ukrainian news agency, on the Belarusian leader’s April 13 statement that the debt problem remained unresolved.
The European Union (EU) condemned Friday what it called a slide into "dictatorship" in Belarus, vowing to act in response to the worsening situation in the ex-Soviet country. In a strongly-worded statement issued at a meeting of EU foreign ministers, the EU`s Luxembourg presidency expressed concern at a series of recent events including a clampdown on an opposition demonstration in Minsk last month. "The EU has for several years watched the situation in Belarus closely and with great concern, and we have not seen the slightest improvement," said Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn.
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