Yushchenko to raise issue of five Ukrainians jailed in Minsk at meeting with Lukashenko in Moscow on May 8 :: Charter'97 :: News

Viktor Yushchenko intends to discuss the recent conviction and jailing in Minsk of five Ukrainian citizens at a meeting with Aleksandr Lukashenko during May 8 festivities in Moscow on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany, Irina Herashchenko, spokeswoman for the Ukrainian president, told BelaPAN.

The five young Ukrainian men were arrested when the Belarusian police aborted an anti-Lukashenko crowd`s attempt to stage a demonstration in downtown Minsk on April 26 to mark 19 years since the Chernobyl accident.

On May 3, the Minsk City Court rejected the petition by the Ukrainian ambassador to Belarus to release the jailed Ukrainians, although a few days before, the same court had granted an early release to 14 Russian citizens who had been sentenced to jail for participation in the same demonstration.

According to Ms. Herashchenko, the Ukrainian leader said at a news conference held in Simferopol on May 4 that he would not like the incident to affect Ukraine`s relations with the brotherly Belarusian people. "But the fact of applying double standards to peaceful demonstrators - citizens of Ukraine and Russia - testifies to the Belarusian leadership`s special approach to this episode," the spokeswoman quoted Mr. Yushchenko as saying.

The Ukrainian president reportedly stressed that at the forthcoming meeting in Moscow, he would propose to the Belarusian leader that both sides should draw conclusions from the "sad incident" and not turn the good-neighborly relations into another type of relations." He noted that the Ukrainian foreign ministry had sent three notes to the Belarusian side in connection with the arrest of the five Ukrainian citizens.