At 5.30 p.m. in Victory Square in Minsk riot policemen detained six young persons. As said by the United Civil Party press service, they were standing near the Eternal Flame with a streamer “Down with Fascist regime!” and two red-green flags. The picket lasted for 5-7 minutes. Two riot policemen ran up to the young people, seized flags and the streamer and called up for reinforcement.

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On August 29 at about 10 p.m. the chairman of Myadzel regional organization of the United Civil Party Andrei Abalevich was detained by an unknown person near the entrance to the building of a trading house. As said by Abalevich, a man was hiding his face. He had dark sports clothes and a cap. Without saying his name, he presented himself as an officer of a “special KGB department, which controls opposition activists”.

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Minsk city committee of pro-regime Communist Party of Belarus is preparing a statement concerning a Japanese exhibition held in the House-Museum of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP).

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The draft law “On Amendments to Federal laws “On basic guarantees of election rights and a right for participation in referendum for the citizens of the Russian Federation” and the “Code of civil procedure of the Russian Federation” requires a serious analysis, believes the Chairman of the Russian Central Election Committee Alexander Veshnyakov. He told about that on Wednesday, August 30, at a briefing for journalists. The chairman of the CEC spoke against “expanding reasons and grounds for registration denial to the size of the Universe”. Besides, as KMNews informs, the CEC chairman said that the authors of the draft law offer to “use early voting again, which in the conditions of our country with its 37 per cent of people working for the state or for municipalities, opens endless possibilities for administrative resources to drive people to polling stations to take part in early voting, and for rigging results, as the polling boxes would stay almost unattended for four nights, and it would be possible to throw anything at all into them”. That is how it has been happening in Belarus, Veshnyakov underlined.

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Today the Union of Belarusian Writers is leaving the House of Writers. Well-known writers and poets of Belarus have gathered in the building in Frunze,5, to carry away portraits of Belarusian literature classics from the House of Writers, which belongs to the General Affairs Management Department under the President.

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The Basmanny court of Moscow once again postponed hearing of the criminal case of a young activist from Belarus Yuras Ivaniukovich. In May he wrote “Long live Belarus!” and “Belarusian TV lies!” on a sign board of a Belarusian Embassy in Russia.

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On August 30 Alyaksandr Lukashenka turns 52. Yesterday he visited Minks region on a working visit. Representatives of the 1st Minsk poultry plant gave him a cock in a cage as a birthday present. As the BelaPAN correspondent was told at the plant, Lukashenka took the present with him. A representative of the plant also told that “there are more than a million of hens at the plant, but only a few male birds”.

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The session of the council of the Union of Belarusian Writers has finished in the House of Writers. It was the last session held in their premises in Frunze Streert, 5. At the moment officer of court have come to the building in order to oust the Union of Belarusian Writers in line with the ruling the Economic Court of Minsk.

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A journalist of the “Komsomolskaya Pravda in Belarus” has received reports about another suspension of investigation of the criminal case brought up on the fact of bodily harm while carrying out his professional duties.

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The First National Channel and the Belarusian Association of Journalists have announced the names of laureates of Dzmitry Zavadsky’s prize for the year 2006. This year the prizes are to be awarded to 3 journalists from Belarus for their courage and professionalism. Besides, for the first time Zavadsky’s Foundation, established by Dzmitry’s family and friends, is to take part in the ceremony.

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The European Parliament members from Poland and Lithuania insist on investigation of incidents in Belarus, in which diplomats of those countries died, Interfax informs. “The chairman of the delegation of the European Parliament on ties with Belarus, Bogdan Klich (Poland) and European parliamentarian Vitautas Landsbergis (Lithuania) have called upon the Council of the European Union to react promptly and strongly to repeating invectives against foreign diplomats in Belarus,” the press service of the European Parliament informs.

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Today is the International Day of the Disappeared. In 1999-2000 in Belarus a vice prime ministers Viktar Hanchar, a former Interior Minister Yury Zakharanka, a businessman and public leader Anatol Krasouski and a journalist disappeared without traces. The higher leadership of Belarus is suspected of implication in abductions of those people. The AFAD (Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances) has issued a statement on that day, signed by its Secretary-General Mary Aileen Bacalso.

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