Court officers are expected to visit the apartment of Marina Bogdanovich, head of the Minsk regional organization of the United Civic Party (UCP), on May 27 to confiscate household effects toward the payment of a fine.
Embattled opposition politician Pavel Severinets whose controversial trial opened in Minsk’s district court on Monday said he is ready for the harshest ruling possible in the case widely condemned as politically motivated.
At a meeting in the French city of Nancy, the leaders of Poland, France and Germany, which form the so-called Weimar Triangle,appealed to all EU states to accept the EU Constitutional Treaty (CT) as it provides the framework for the enlarged EU. Aleksander Kwasniewski, Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schroeder also discussed the draft EU budget for 2007-2013, an issue which according to the Polish president still remains "open." As for the new EU budget, Poland wants to strike the right balance between the solidarity principle and fiscal discipline. Meanwhile, Germany and France are trying to freeze budget expenditure at the level of 1 percent of EU gross national income (GNI). During the summit, Kwasniewski also called on the EU to help protect the rights of the Polish minority in Belarus. "I hope the EU will use its authority to stop incidents which are a clear breach of democratic rules," said Kwasniewski.
On May 22 a rally in support of democracy in Belarus was held in the center of Warsaw. Several dozens of people came to show their support to Belarusians in their fight for democracy. The picket was organized by the Center youth “Young Democrats”, “Union for Democracy Support in Belarus”. White-red-white flags were unfurled, and the protesters were chanting : “Down with Lukashenka!”, “Free Poland Needs Free Belarus”, “Yes to Belarus, No to Lukashenka”, “Minsk-Warsaw – Common Cause, “Hitler, Stalin, Lukashenka”.
Trial over the deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the 13th convocation Andrei Klimov is to start on June 6 in the court of the Central district of Minsk. Judge Svyatlana Hanchar is to try the case of the politician charged with organizing the mass opposition protest action on March 25.
One of the leaders of the All-National Strike Committee of Vendors, member of the “Free Belarus” Alyaksandr Vasilyeu, a vendor from Hrodna, still remains in the republican prison hospital. A year ago he was sentenced to two years of imprisonment for libel on the president. The wife of Alyaksandr Vasilyeu has received a letter from her husband.
On May 23 oppositional politicians Paval Sevyarynets and Mikola Statkevich appeared in the court of the Central district of Minsk. In the beginning of the session the leader of the Belarusian Social Democratic Party (Narodnaya Hramada), coordinator of the European coalition, and one of the leaders of the “Young Front” Paval Sevyarynets, proposed a disqualification of the court. After a 15-minute discussion, the court denied the request. Besides, M. Statkevich waived a right for the service of the state lawyer, and refused to cooperate with the court. It means that the defendant is not going to answer the questions of the court.
Visible signs of the stroke could be seen in the Belarusian political prisoner Mikhail Marynich still. He continues the rehabilitation treatment course in Minsk colony, where he has been transferred after the prison hospital. Former minister and ambassador was visited by his lawyer in the colony on May 20.
Some 15 people on Sunday formed a human chain near a pretrial detention center in Minsk where prominent opposition politician Andrei Klimov is held awaiting his trial on what is widely viewed as a politically motivated charge.
The prosecutor’s office of Minsk reopened the criminal case against deputy head of the Belarusian Helsinki Committee Harry Pahanyajla. The human rights activist is charged with libel against Alyaksandr Lukashenka.
Poland’s newspaper has published a list of Belarusian citizens who will be barred from entering that country amid a bitter diplomatic row sparked by controversy over the Union of Poles in Belarus (UPB) that prompted the two countries to expel each other`s diplomats.
Activists of Belarus` outlawed Vyasna human rights organization have issued a statement accusing the Belarusian authorities of increasing pressure on members of the pro-democratic opposition.
The Minsk-based private newspaper Narodnaya Volya has been hit with four more libel suits over its publication of a list of signatories of a statement in support of the Will of the People movement. Editor Iosif Seredich learned about the new lawsuits on May 20 during his meeting held in the court of Minsk’s Leninsky district in connection with five claims filed earlier, said the Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ).
In Ivatsevichy (Brest region) the kiosks owned by Belsaiuzdruk (the state-owned company that distributes newspapers and magazines) stopped putting up for display independent periodicals, including Gazeta dlia vas, Narodnaia volia, Kurier iz Borisova. The senior editor of the Gazeta dlia vas Lidzia Tsaluika told the Belarusian Association of Journalists.
Alyaksandr Yarashuk, leader of the Belarusian Congress of Democratic Trade Unions (BCDTU), slammed as “an answer for form only” a reply from the labor ministry to his question about the Belarusian government’s progress toward fulfilling recommendations of the International Labor Organization (ILO).
Belarus has no revolutionary prerequisites at all, Stepan Sukhorenko, its KGB (state security committee) chief, said to a news conference in Astana, Kazakh capital, on May 20 .
A proposal for establishing a network of regional radio stations for broadcasting to Belarus has been submitted to the secretariat of European Parliament President Josep Borrell. The document calls for setting up radio stations in Lithuania, Poland and possibly Ukraine, Bogdan Klich, a Polish member of the European parliament, told BelaPAN.
The Polish Sejm (parliament) is soon to consider sanctions against the Belarusian authorities, a spokesperson for the Civic Platform (CP) caucus that sponsored the proposals, told BelaPAN.
On Friday evening in the German theatre of Hamburg the award presentation ceremony of Henri Nannen award took place. Representatives of the establishment, mass media and art of Germany have participated in the ceremony. The jury of the prestigious prize consisted of the editors of the leading German magazines “Stern”, “Der Spiegel”, “Focus”, newspapers “Sueddeutshe Zeitung”, “Die Welt”, and others. They have considered 840 articles and 150 investigations by journalists. The award has 7 nominations. A famous Belarusian journalist, deputy editor of the Minsk-based private newspaper Belorusskaya Delovaya Gazeta, Irina Khalip, has become the winner in the nomination “For courage in the freedom of speech defence”. German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer specially arrived to Hamburg to present the laureate.
The Belarusian state television has accused Poland of reluctance to cooperate in countering illicit drug trafficking for political reasons. A TV correspondent reported about several facts of confiscation of hard synthetic drugs produced in Poland and said that Belarusian police officials are complaining that there has been a cooldown in relations with their Polish counterparts. He stressed that only terrorists, drug dealers and criminals would benefit from the weakening of bilateral contacts between Belarusian and Polish police. The report comes amid a diplomatic scandal between Poland and Belarus over the rights of the Polish minority in Belarus and the expulsion of a Polish diplomat from Minsk. The following is the text of the report broadcast by Belarusian TV on 22 May:
The secretariat of the Francisak Skaryna Belarusian Language Society (BLS) has issued an appeal urging the public to join a campaign against the renaming of Minsk’s main thoroughfare.
Belarus extradited to Russia Nurmagomed Khatuyev suspected of perpetrating terrorist acts in Budyonnovsk and Moscow, the Belarussian Prosecutor General`s Office told RIA Novosti.
The National Assembly’s House of Representatives on Friday approved a ratification bill for a Belarusian-Iranian agreement on mutual assistance and cooperation in customs affairs.
The Belarusian interior ministry recorded 63,800 criminal offenses in the first four months of the year, a 27.9-percent rise on the same period of the previous year.
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