An accusation was brought up against the ex-candidate for presidency Alyaksandr Kazulin. He is charges with hooliganism and organizing group actions and violation of public order. He is facing up to 6 years of imprisonment according to the law. Alyaksandr Kazulin does not plead guilty and charges the authorities with “provocation”. He believes it’s a politically motivated case. The Radio Svabdoa was informed about that by Kazulin’s lawyer Ihar Rynkevich, who met his client today in Zhodzina remand prison.
The Belarusian government demonstrated "flagrant and total disregard for the democratic process and OSCE values" during the recent presidential campaign in the country, Julie Finley, the US ambassador to the OSCE, said at a meeting of the OSCE Permanent Council in Vienna on Thursday.
The international community is concerned about the fate of a person who possibly was brutally beaten up during the demonstration on March 25 and died of the wounds. Representatives of the OSCE in Belarus ask the relatives of the injured and witnesses who could clear up the details to contact the office on the phone: 272-34-96 or send reports to the email office-by@osce.org
Nino Giorgobiani, a journalist of the camera crew of Georgian TV has been released. At the moment she is in Kyiv. She arrived to Kyiv accompanied by Georgian consul in Ukraine Zurab Kvachadze, the News-Georgia informs.
The cynicism of the authorities has no limits. Today about 100 people have come to Polish Embassy in Minsk. They brought flowers to express gratitude to the Polish people for their solidarity with the Belarusians. As we have informed, Poland plans to admit all Belarusian students expelled from universities for political activities. However, policemen were hostile to this sign of gratitude. People with flowers were rudely pushed off the building of the embassy, and were not allowed to lay flowers by the Embassy. It is worth mentioning that at the same moment a picket pf the members of pro-Lukashenka Belarusian Republican Youth Union, who protested against the policy of the European Union against Lukashenka’s dictatorship. Policemen were not interfering with the BRYU members, though it was an unsanctioned protest.
“After officers attacked people in the back, the whereabouts of several protesters are still unknown. We have received reports that one of those who was left lying on the ground, Syarhei Atroshchanka, died in Minsk hospital number 9. The location of a young man, Alyaksandr Tsishuk, is unknown as well. He wasn’t found in any lists. I want to believe that he is alive. We cannot find two more persons, who went together with Alyaksandr Kazulin outside police cordon at October Square for negotiations with riot policemen”, told Nina Shydlouskaya at the online press conference at the Radio Svaboda.
Dear viewers! Many of you were witnesses of the events on March 25, when the regime gone mad from fear and used weapons against its own people. Definitely, many of you saw riot policemen brutally beating up people with batons, how peaceful protesters were attacked by smoke-grenades and noise-making explosives. For today not all protesters’ whereabouts are established. The authorities are hushing up information about people injured during the disbanding of the demonstration. Moreover, information was received that some of them died in hospitals. Today mass media tell about two names of persons brutally beaten up by policemen, Syarhei Atroshchank and Uladzimir Shadenka. However, their names could be mistaken, or maybe there are other victims whose names we do not know. If you saw people who experienced cruel battery, or you know something about critically wounded, write us: charter97@gmail.com.
In recent hours reports say that a dweller of Hrodna region Syarhei Atroshchanka, who had been brutally beaten up by riot policemen during peaceful demonstration dispersal in Dzerzhynski Avenue in Minsk on March 25, 2006, died yesterday in the 9th Minsk hospital. Taking in consideration that law-enforcing agencies and health care agencies of Minsk deny any information on this situation, the headquarters of the united democratic forces leader Alyaksandr Milinkevich addresses the citizens who may know anything about beating-up of Syarhei Atroshchanka, details of the incident and his location, to send information to the web-site of Alyaksandr Milinkevich (www.milinkevich.org), to the offices of democratic political parties and organizations, or to regional headquarters.
At a press conference last week the Prosecutor General Pyort Miklashevich told that prosecutor’s office is trying to find out from which side, by law-enforcers or by protesters, special weapons were used during the unsanctioned protest in Minsk on March 25. Several hours earlier the Prosecutor’s office of Belarus declared that during the clashes of protesters with police “an unknown noise grenade was exploded, and several smoke bombs were thrown”. “The investigation has started, which side had used these weapons. We are carrying out an investigation,” Miklashevich said.
In Zhodzina part of the participants of the protest against fraudulent election results held in Minsk on October Square went on hunger strike. Today is the seventh day of their imprisonment in the local pre-trial detention center.
NATO has put an 11-year-old partnership pact with Belarus under review, an alliance spokesman said. The reason for the review was the presidential election in Belarus, which the West denounced as flawed.
We continue to collect stories of people arrested during protest actions in Minsk. It’s a diary of a young man who had spent 7 days in Akrestsin Street detention center. He was detained on October Square on March 21.
“Friends, we have been deprived of many things, but the right to laugh cannot be taken away from us! On April 1, we shall laugh at the fool together!” this call was published in one of the Belarusian blogs today. The organizers offer Minks dwellers to come to Dinamo stadium on April 1 at 2 p.m. (entrance at Ulyanauskaya and Kastrychnitskaya streets’ crossing).
On March 30 at 4 p.m. an action is planned in front of the Polish Embassy in Belarus, some internet sources inform. People want to express gratitude to the Polish nation for support of the tent camp defenders, and for the intention to admit Belarusian students repressed for political activism to Polish universities. People are going to bring flowers to the Embassy. The initiative was offered by relatives and friends of Belarusian political prisoners.
Today in Warsaw the Declaration of Intensions concerning admitting to Polish universities the Belarusian students who are now in jail and who would be punished by being expelled from their universities. The document is to be signed by a number of leading Polish universities’ rectors, and by Alyaxandr Milinkevich and Polish Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz. It is an unprecedented decision to support the Belarusian students at the state level. Poland has never done anything like this before.
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