The Slovak Foreign Affairs Ministry issued a statement on Tuesday expressing serious concern over reports about the closure of the Independent Institute for Social Economic and Political Studies in Belarus. This institute is one of the oldest non-governmental and research institutions in Belarus. According to the Slovak Foreign Affairs Ministry, this is another sign that the free flow of objective information to the public is being restricted, the ministry`s spokesperson, Juraj Tomaga, told SITA news agency. The Supreme Court of Belarus ordered the closure of the institute based on a motion filed by the Justice Ministry. Sociology professor Oleg Manaev from Belarus could not attend a conference in Bratislava on transatlantic relationships. President of the Prague Society for International Cooperation Marc S. Ellenbogen informed the conference that the university where Professor Manaev works, forbade him to attend.
Justice Ministry has extended till June 1 the term for relocation of all branches of parties and public organizations from residential premises to office buildings. The regulations about it were signed by the Justice Minister Halavanau on April 5.
The European Commission could set up a mission in Belarus capital Minsk, EU external relations commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said on April 15. Speaking at an informal Council of EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg, she said the move would signal the European Union`s commitment to supporting openness and democracy in Belarus. The mission would operate under the authority of the Commission`s Ukraine office, in Kiev.
The Embassy of the United States of America expresses its profound disappointment over the Belarusian Supreme Court’s April 15 decision to liquidate the Independent Institute of Socio-Economic and Political Studies (IISEPS), on what appear to be dubious legal grounds. By closing IISEPS, a respected organization devoted to professional sociological research and opinion polling, the Belarusian authorities have taken another step toward depriving Belarusian society of sources of independent thought and discourse. Once again, the Belarusian government has demonstrated a fundamental lack of regard for the principles of a democratic society to which it is committed to uphold as a member of the OSCE. The United States calls upon the Belarusian authorities to live up to its commitments to the OSCE and reverse this decision, which clearly violates those solemn commitments.
The statements that U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice recently made about Belarus in Moscow and Vilnius do not comply with international law standards, CIS first deputy executive secretary Dmitry Bulakhov told Interfax on Thursday.
Democratic changes should not be “imposed from outside,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said at a news conference in Vilnius on April 21 while commenting on US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s call for changes in Belarus.
Last Thursday the UN Commission on Human Rights passed a resolution condemning the Belarusian regime for regular violations of human rights. Our closest neighbour, Ukraine, voted for the resolution as well. The new democratic leadership demonstrated the new approach not only in the home policy, but in the foreign policy as well. Today the advisor of the Foreign Affairs Minister of Ukraine, Executive Director of the Euroatlantic Cooperation Sergei Evtushenko answers the questions of the Charter’97 press center.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has described Belarus as the "last true dictatorship" in central Europe and has called for the country to change. Speaking in neighbouring Lithuania, Ms Rice said she thought it was no bad thing for ex-Soviet republics to "throw off the yoke of tyranny". Belarus has responded angrily to the comments, accusing Ms Rice of meddling in the country`s affairs.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has denied that the Bush administration`s policy of promoting freedom and democracy around the world is aimed at "fomenting revolution" but praised efforts by people in other countries to "throw off the yoke of tyranny."
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke with CNN Moscow Bureau Chief Jill Dougherty shortly before Washington`s top diplomat was to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Here is a transcript of the interview:
The press office of the EU Council has confirmed reports that Javier Solana, the European Union`s High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, plans to meet with representatives of Belarus` pro-democratic political parties and non-governmental organizations while in Vilnius on April 21.
Georgia`s parliament adopted an appeal to the Belarusian people on Wednesday. Georgia hopes that "their bothers - the Belarusian people - will manage to overcome the resistance of interior and exterior retrograde forces and that a beautiful European country will not become isolated," the appeal said.
What is the situation in Belarus with the registration of the parties and public associations? Over the past few years the number of the public associations has been going down. This year the same is happening to the political parties. Specialists believe this is connected with the political events of the year to come. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Justice speaks of ordinary checks performed to ensure observance of laws.
On 20 April it is 6 months since our colleague, a journalist on the independent newspaper Salidarnasts, a member of the Belarusian Association of Journalists Veranika Charkasava was murdered. On the eve of the occasion the Belarusian Association of Journalists staged a press-briefing attended by Veranika’s family and colleagues.
Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz, speaker of Poland’s Sejm, the lower parliamentary house, dismissed as “scandalous and unfounded” Aleksandr Lukashenko’s accusations targeting Polish diplomats in Belarus.
Nine thousand copies of the book Occasional President will be confiscated in favor of the state, said Radio Liberty. This was the ruling passed by Vitsebsk Regional Economic Court that had finished considering the case of the businessman Barys Elkin who had transported these books in his own car from Smolensk and was detained by the traffic police on route.
An official with the Lithuanian foreign ministry rejected the allegation that a man recently detained in Belarus for illegally bringing $200,000 in cash to the country was a citizen of Lithuania.
On 14 April an officer of the Pinsk-based regional branch of the State Control Committee arrived at the editorial office of the Zhivaya voda newspaper (founded by the state-owned concernt Bedmeliavadhas) issued in Minsk. He familiarized the senior editor of the publication Valiantsina Navarych with the regulation by the Presidential Administration of the Republic of Belarus. The document said that the editorial offices of the newspapers founded by the state-owned institutions and organizations should not have as founders private individuals, individual entrepreneurs and businessmen with a share of foreign capital. The editor was not allowed to keep this document. As requested by the State Control officer, V.Navarych signed a declaration, in which she promised not to cooperate with the above persons over the issue of the newspaper, or use foreign sponsor help.
Belarus and Russia have established really close cooperation in the military sphere, said Aleksandr Lukashenko on Wednesday while receiving Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov and the chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, Yury Baluyevsky.
Belarusian Defense Minister Col-Gen Leonid Maltsev said the security system of the Union State of Russia and Belarus has been set up and is functioning. "To perfect and strengthen the security system, the military are developing the appropriate mechanisms of response to possible challenges and threats to the Union State," Maltsev told reporters after a joint meeting of the boards of the Russian and Belarussian Defense Ministries on Wednesday.
Belarusian historians and members of the Roman Catholic Church Cardinal expect Joseph Ratzinger, who has become Pope Benedict XVI and the new head of 1.1 billion Roman Catholics worldwide, to continue the policy of his predecessor, John Paul II.
The OSCE Special Representative on Combating Trafficking in Human Beings, Helga Konrad, is expected to attend a meeting of the CIS Council of Interior Ministers to be held in Minsk on April 21 and 22.
Lukoil-Belorussiya, the Minsk-based subsidiary of Russia’s Lukoil, has denied that its employees are involved in human trafficking, an allegation made by Aleksandr Lukashenko in his annual address to the National Assembly on Tuesday.
Some 530 families remain to be relocated from Chernobyl-affected areas of the Gomel and Mogilyov regions, Vladimir Kudin, a departmental head with the Chernobyl Committee under the Council of Ministers, told reporters in Minsk on Tuesday.
The Belarusian Council of Ministers is to decide before May 1 on the construction of a new television tower in Minsk, Vladimir Goncharenko, communications minister, said on April 20.
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