Nazi ideology is lifting up its head again in some countries of the European Union. As Alyaksandr Lukashenka noted after watching the Belarusian film “Deep current”, “It is manifested not only in state honours to survived Fascists, but is revival of the national discrimination policy, when from 20% to 40% of citizens of neighbouring countries (mostly Slaves) are considered “non-citizens” and they are derogated from their rights. They all are our people, the Belarusians and Russians”.
The Interior Ministry of Belarus is to see that youth organizations from Ukraine and Russia would not interfere with the internal affairs of the country, told first deputy of internal affairs of Belarus Alyaksandr Schurko. The Interior Ministry together with the Foreign Ministry and Belarusian Embassies abroad is to take certain measures so that the actions of youth organizations of Ukraine and Russia would keep within the limits of legislation and not interfere with the internal affairs of the country.
Activists of youth organizations from Azerbaijan are planning to come to Minsk to support Belarusian oppositionists in their fight for democratic changes in the country.
“Voluntarily, in keeping with the established order”, the Belarusian popular Front Party is proposed to vacate the premises of its headquarters since 1992 in Varvashenya Street, 8. The deputy chairman of the party Viktar Ivashkevich told to the “Pahonya” that the order is made by higher institutions, and the decisions of the higher institutions are political”.
Activists in Russia and Belarus offered a bleak picture of press freedom in two ex-Soviet republics on Tuesday, condemning what they said was state-sponsored media censorship and denouncing attacks on journalists who have challenged the governments.
On May 4 Judge Valery Samajluk has delivered this judgement after the two days of the trial. The Justice Ministry had appealed to the court with a request to shut up the society.
Garri Pogonyailo, a prominent lawyer who represents the family of Dmitry Zavadsky, has requested the Prosecutor General’s Office to order the exhumation of two bodies to establish whether one of them may be of the TV cameraman who went missing in 2000, the private newspaper Narodnaya Volya reported.
Belarusian opposition activists met with the head of the European Union Directorate at the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office at a reception hosted by the British embassy in Minsk on Tuesday, according to the press office of the Belarusian Popular Front (BPF).
The National Assembly’s House of Representatives, at its May 4 session, approved a ratification bill for a Belarusian-Iranian agreement on cooperation in the security sphere. The accord was signed during Iranian President Mohammed Khatami’s visit to Belarus last September, Deputy Interior Minister Aleksandr Shchurko told the House.
On Wednesday, May 4, an active mass picketing of the Belarusian Embassy in Kyiv by members of A;;-Ukrainian youth association “National Alliance” is to start.
On May 3 a KGB man visited Syarzhuk Lisichonak, a hospitalized activist of the “Young Front”. The KGB representative tried to win him over for cooperation, told Andrei Dzenisevich, a secretary of the organization, who also visited the patient.
The ruling of the city court of Minsk to affirm a previous court decision and leave 5 Ukrainian activists from the “National Alliance” in prison, thought the same4 court released 14 Russian citizens also sentenced for participation in protest on April 26, was called politically motivated by Belarusian human rights activists.
Amnesty International has called on the international community to exert pressure on the governments of Belarus, Russia, Turkmenistan and Turkey to stop the intimidation of human rights activists and ensure that everybody can “enjoy their rights to the freedoms of expression, association and assembly.”
The court of Minsk’s Tsentralny district is expected on May 21 to set the date for opposition activists Pavel Severinets and Nikolai Statkevich to answer criminal charges in connection with last October mass protests in Minsk. If found guilty of staging the protests against election fraud, the two politicians may face up to three years in prison.
Ukraine failed to make a proper request for the revision of jail sentences imposed on Ukrainians over the April 26 demonstration in Minsk, the Ukrainsky Novyny news agency quoted Belarusian Ambassador Valentin Velichko as saying at a news conference in Kyiv on May 3.
Belarus’ police arrested five Ukrainians, 14 Russians and seven Belarusians during an unauthorized demonstration on April 26. All the demonstrators were sentenced to short jail terms of five to 15 days.
The freedom of expression and assembly are not just “mere words” for the Ukrainian government, Irina Gerashchenko, spokeswoman for Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, commented to BelaPAN on Tuesday on the April 26 arrests of five Ukrainian citizens in Minsk.
She said that those were the values that the Ukrainians defended during protests at Kyiv’s Independence Square last year.
A workshop with the attendance of OSCE representatives, members of the National Assembly and opposition politicians will take place in Minsk on May 30, a spokesman for Uta Zapf, head of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly’s working group on Belarus, told BelaPAN.
Anatoly Lebedko, leader of the United Civic Party, and third-sector activist Aleksandr Milinkevich, both standing a realistic chance of being named a single opposition candidate in the 2006 presidential election, will head for Georgia on May 7.
“Democracy will gain a victory in Belarus and democracy will win everywhere,” the Civil Georgia news agency quoted Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili as saying at a meeting with Georgian youths on May 3.
Alexander Lukashenko expressed satisfaction with the development of economic relations with Armenia, noting the steadily increasing trade turnover. "The two countries succeeded in finding ways to engage in mutual trade in the present-day difficult conditions," Lukashenko noted at a meeting with visiting Armenian Prime Minister Andranik Margaryan on Tuesday.
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