The Latvian government intends to demand compensation from Belarus for an oil spill which contaminated a 200-kilometre stretch of river, officials confirmed Friday. The government is planning to ask for compensation when it becomes clear how much the spill has cost, Arno Pjatkin, spokesman for Prime Minister Aigars Kalvitis, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.
A search in the apartment of the Belarusian Popular Front Party activist Uladzimir Kishkurna ended in confiscation of a risograph and printed materials, U. Kishkurna said to BelaPAN agency. As we have informed, today four policemen with a search warrant accompanied by attesting witnesses entered his private house in Minsk under a pretext of searching illicit drugs.
Since March 22 an activist of the Young Front Barys Haretski continued a hunger strike of protest in the remand prison in Akrestsin Street, after being delivered a verdict of 12 days of arrest in the court of Pershamajski district of Minsk, Radio Svaboda informs. On April 2 his fellows are to meet him near the prison gate.
More opposition activists are released from Akrestsin Street detention facility. They were detained before and during celebrations on the 89th anniversary of the Belarusian People’s Republic. Yesterday a young activist Alyaksandr Atroshchankau was released. He was detained on March 24 in the evening and sentenced to 5 days of arrest. He was beaten up and handcuffed during detention. “It was a rather harsh arrest. On my way home, near a metro station “Pushkinskaya” at least 10 riot policemen in mufti ganged up on me. I was stricken down to the ground, to the mud. They handcuffed me; hit me on the legs several times, and one time on the head. Then they took me to the police department of Frunzenski district of Minsk. A report was drawn up there, stating that I had been cursing in a public place. I was taken bad in the police department, my head ached awfully. When an ambulance arrived, it turned out that I had a high blood pressure. I was given an injection, but not taken to a hospital. There were bruises and injuries on my body after the beating, and there were traces of handcuffs on my hands,” the Charter’97 press-center was informed by Alyaksandr Atroshchankau.
The official visit of Alyaksandr Lukashenka to Venezuela is to be paid in the near future and then President of the Bolivar Republic of Venezuela Ugo Chaves is to visit our country. That was reported to the BELTA at the press service of the head of the Belarusian state while commenting on the working meeting of Alyaksandr Lukashenka with the State Secretary of the Security Council and co-chairman of the Belarusian-Venezuelan joint Commission Viktar Sheiman.
New clip of the “Lyapis Trubetskoy” group, which has not been televised, yet, won in the major nomination of the “Multimatograph” international festival recently held in Vologda. We mean the song “Capital”. The Lyapis’s new album was named after this song. The ”Capital” album is to be released in a few weeks.
Minsk regional Internal Affairs Department has offered the Steering Committee for Commemoration of Stalin time repressions victims to pay for guarding the memorial area of Kurapaty. A letter signed by a deputy head of regional police Mr. Shutau has been received today by members of the committee, Radio Svaboda informs.
Next day after Freedom Day celebration well-known young activists Uladzimir Shyla and Dzyanis Karnou were tried in Salihorsk. On the same day Salihorsk activists of the “Young Front” started to put up white-red-white flags in the center of the city. In the night dozens of graffiti “Freedom to Dashkevich!” emerged on houses’ walls. (Dashkevich is the leader of the Young Front sentenced to a year and a half of imprisonment). Leaflets with a call to release political prisoners were distributed.
On March 29-30 OSCE addition conference on human dimension is taking place in Vienna. The main subject is freedom of associations and assembly, and freedom of expression. On March 29 freedom of association in the OSCE region, which includes also Belarus, was discussed. The Belarusian delegation, as is usual at such events, was represented by regime officials and members of civil society. As the European Radio had found out, the official governmental delegation includes the head of Justice Ministry’s civil associations’ authority of Aleh Slizheuski, who had been banned entry to the territory of the EU and US for participation in liquidation of non-governmental organizations and crackdown on civil society.
Ivan Nikitchanka, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, has been named the head of a group that will organize an opposition demonstration traditionally called Charnobylski Shlyakh (Path of Chernobyl) in Minsk.
Head of the 8th department of the psycho-hospital where Kristina Shatikova had been kept for 3 days said that the oppositionist had been brought to the hospital by the militiamen. “She was brought here by the militiamen. The application was submitted. The application was signed but no surnames were given. But it was signed. It was the order for her forced hospitalization”, Alla Ustsyonisheva reported.
The Nordic countries give Belarussian citizens an opportunity to study abroad because of the political situation in their own country, providing scholarships as part of a programme started by the Nordic Council of Ministers and the EU last year. It was devised to fund young Belarussians who would otherwise have been unable to continue their studies at home after spring 2006.
An informal meeting of foreign ministers of the European Union which is to take place on March 30-31 in the city of Bremen (Germany) under the chairmanship of the head of German Foreign Ministry Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the most vital issues of the EU and world politics are to be considered, including relations of the EU with Belarus.
The standing committee on agriculture and food-processing industry in the Moldovan parliament has protested against the recent establishment of a Belarusian-Moldovan company that will export wine to Belarus.
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