Crossing a border has always carried a special drama. Moments after my train crossed from Hungary to Romania in the 1980s -- from a country run by a liberal communist regime to one under the banana republic-style jackboot of Nicolae Ceausescu -- the Romanian customs officials tried to confiscate my typewriter. It was the reverse of my experience going from Iraq to Syria: The sense of fear left me as I departed Saddam Hussein`s penitentiary state and entered a merely repressive dictatorship, where the worst thing that befell me was that news sources did not return my phone calls. More recently, when I crossed from the enfeebled democracy of Georgia to a province of southern Russia, overseen by the quasi-autocratic Vladimir Putin, the thuggery of the police suddenly intensified.

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In Svetlahorsk (Homel region) one more activist was fired. In this city it is the second time when a person was fired in connection with participation in the campaign during elections, the press service of the democratic leader Alyaksandr Milinkevich informs.

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The Poland-based “Union For Democracy Support in Belarus” has started a campaign “Freedom to Mikita Sasim”, which aim is in sending as many letters as possible to the detained youth activist, the Radio Svaboda informs.

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An announcement about a flash-mob in support of the independent newspaper “Nasha Niva” was placed on the web. It is offered to gather on April 28 at 6 p.m. on October Square in Minsk, on the place where a tent camp stood in March. Participants of the action are going to read the “Nasha Niva” showily, and then march with the newspapers along F.Skaryna (Independence) prospect up to Victory Square.

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The trial over the youth leader Mikita Sasim is to start on May 4 at 9.30 a.m. in the court of Baranavichy district of Baranavichy. Mikita Sasim is charged with draft evasion, despite of the fact that last autumn he was granted a deferment because of a brain injury during a dispersal of a peaceful protest rally on September 16, 2005. The youth leader is kept in a remand prison for a second month. He faces up to 3 years in prison. Human rights activists say that the criminal action against Mikita Sasim is politically motivated.

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A political prisoner, deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the 13th convocation Andrei Klimau (Klimov), who serves a sentence in the detention facility of open type number 22 in the village of Barshchouka Rechytsa district Homel region, was asked not to leave the territory of the special settlement.

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Babrujsk policemen warn a youth activist Dzyanis Bujnitski that they will place a mine into the car of the youth activist who is going to Minsk to October Square on April 26. As we have informed, Dzyanis Bujnitski was the only activist who after the liquidation of the tent camp went on hunger strike in Zhodzina for 10 days, two of which he was on hunger strike without water.

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"Propaganda of Belarusian mass media (printed and electronic), integration of Belarus into the international information space and international cooperation in the field of the media" are the purposes of the 10th International special exposition "Mass Media in Belarus" that is to take place in Minsk on May 3-9. (A quote from the site of the Ministry of Information). According to the Belarusian Association of Journalists, the majority of independent editions are not going to take part in the exposition.

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The editor-in-chief of "Hazeta Slonimskaja" Victar Valadashchuk got to know that Ihar Trafimovich (the head of the department of trade and personal services of the District Executive Committee) had told distributors of "Hazeta Slonimskaja" that they were going to be forbidden to work as private entrepreneurs.

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Aleksandr Lukashenko, by his presidential edict, has authorized a draft interstate agreement on the organization of air service between Belarus and Cuba, which is to be discussed with Havana. The agreement is aimed at creating a legal basis for regular air service between the two countries, the Belarusian leader’s press office reported.

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Vadim Dovnar, the Russia newspaper Kommersant’s correspondent in Belarus was detained by police for six hours on April 21 and ultimately charged with speaking obscenities.

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A political prisoner Paval Sevyarynets is serving a sentence of corrective works for more than 8 months. He lives in a village of Maloe Sitna, Polatsk district. He had been sent there for organizing street protests against fraudulent elections. As the Radio Svaboda has found out, on April 25 and 26 he is to be placed under arrest and would be required in a room of the special center all the time.

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As “Nasha Niva” has found out from the sources in the Embassy of one of the European countries, deputy head of the Belarusian State TV and Radio Company Yury Azaronak was denied visa for visiting Spain. He applied for a visa in French Embassy which represents Spanish interests in Belarus.

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On April 23 on October Square of Minsk a flash-mob in commemoration of the defenders of the tent camp of March 20-24 was held. Several hundreds of young people were sitting on the square for 5 minutes, touching the ground with palms of their hands.

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Air forces of the US refused to provide an air passage and refuelling stop to the plane of the Belarusian Prime Minister Syarhei Sidorski. They referred to congestion of air lines over Boston, Interfax informs. In this connection the head of the Belarusian government who is on Cuba with official visit, had to change the route. He would return to Minsk not through the USA and Iceland, as planned before, but via Barbados and the Canary Islands, where the refuelling stop would take place.

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