Police have arrested a 26-year-old resident of the village of Dyagilets in the Beryoza district, Brest region, on suspicion that he killed his
5-month baby boy.
The father reported to the police on October 29, saying that the baby had fallen from a sofa, hit his head against the floor and died, according to the Brest regional police department.
An autopsy showed that someone had fetched the boy a heavy blow on his head. Then the father admitted that he had hit his son as he wanted to get rid of him. This has been the second instance in the region this month that a parent kills his or her child.
Earlier, an under-18 student of a vocational school was arrested in Baranovichi on suspicion of murdering her newborn daughter.
he Trishinskoye cemetery in Brest had an unusually large number of visitors on October 30, most of whom came to pay tribute to victims of Stalinist purges near a monument to oppression victims. October 30 is
observed in post-Soviet countries as Remembrance Day for Victims of Political Oppression.
Daniil Nikitchik, chairman of the Brest Regional Association of Political Oppression Victims which has about 200 members, said that the authorities attitude to the victims has been changing for the worse lately. In particular, the central government suspended indefinitely benefits to Stalinist oppression victims, who also do not receive any support from the local government. Survivors of Stalinist horror still recall that four years ago, the city authorities distributed at their own
discretion German humanitarian aid, which had been consigned to the Association of Political Oppression Victims.
The Supreme Economic Court of Belarus has refused to consider the Brest-based private newspaper Brestsky Kuryer's complaint contesting the State Press Committee's warning.
The newspaper received the warning for disseminating information on behalf of unregistered organizations. The August 23 issue of Brestsky Kuryer carried a statement, in which the leaders of opposition political parties' local chapters condemned the state media for spreading lies about the opposition's presidential candidates.
The State Press Committee said that neither the Belarusian Social Democratic Party nor the United Civic Party, which signed the statement, were registered with the regional authorities, that is why they had no right to carry out activity in the region. Another signatory, the local chapter of the Belarusian Popular Front, just filed an application for registration. In its complaint, the paper argued that the statement had
been made on behalf of the regional campaign headquarters of the opposition coalition's presidential candidate, and that the individuals who had signed it had not acted on behalf of their organizations and just indicated their party affiliation.
The Supreme Economic Court rejected the complaint on the ground that it was signed by the director of the Brestsky Kuryer company, Nikolai Aleksandrov, not by the publication's chief editor as required by the media law. Mikhail Pastukhov, head of the Belarusian Association of
Journalists' Center for the Legal Protection of the Media, believes that the Supreme Economic Court refused to consider Brestsky Kuryer's complaint under a purely formal pretext. The publication intends to contest the court's decision.
Aleksandr Lukashenko has postponed, from November 3 to 9, his announced trip to the Brest region in southwestern Belarus, officials in Brest said late last week.
No reasons were given for the postponement. While in Brest, the Belarusian ruler is expected to visit the city hospital, the regional cancer center, the carpet factory Kovry Bresta, as well as the Ice Palace, one of the world-class hockey arenas he has built throughout the country. He also plans to hold a conference with local executive officials and enterprise heads. It will be entirely the prerogative of the state media to
cover the trip. No non-state reporters will be allowed, Brest officials told BelaPAN.
Gennady Mosko, chairman of the Brest City Executive Committee, has requested the Brest regional government, to relieve his of this post.
The city authorities has been under criticism from the regional government and the State Control Committee lately for serious shortcomings in the social and economic sphere.
At a meeting held in mid-October, the board of the State Control Committee's Brest regional branch gave an extremely negative assessment of the City Executive Committee's performance. The branch said in a report that "the Brest City Executive Committee has accumulated considerable problems in the organization of work.... The revealed facts are evidence that the City Executive Committee cannot
control to a sufficient degree the processes in the city."
State Control Committee inspectors insisted that this state of affairs "creates favorable grounds for abuses." At a special session held on October 26, the Brest City Executive Committee discussed the findings made State Control Committee inspectors after studying the operation of the city's public transportation. As a result, the directors of a number of transport organizations and some government officials received reprimands. During the second part of the session, which was held behind closed doors, the committee discussed its internal
problems. Just then Mr. Mosko expressed his intention to resign.
If Mr. Mosko's resignation is accepted, the law-enforcement
agencies may launch an inquiry into the disclosed wrongdoings within the Brest City Executive Committee, an official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told BelaPAN.
Forty-three percent of the 350 residents of the Brest region interviewed randomly by a Brest-based non-governmental organization named Logos believed that the United States did not constitute any threat to Belarus, whereas 42 percent adhered to the contrary opinion. Fifteen
percent of those polled found it difficult to give a definite reply.
Asked, "What or who is the main cause of the deterioration in relations between the Republic of Belarus and the United States?" 41 percent of the interviewed checked the Belarusian government. 13 percent marked off the polarity of national interests, 12 percent the US government, 7
percent the existence of the Belarusian opposition, 6 percent the process of Belarusian-Russian integration, 4 percent stereotypes of the past, 3 percent global capitalism, and 2 percent the Central Investigation Agency. Twelve percent of the respondents found it difficult to answer the question.
Mikhail Golovach, former director of a state-run bus depot in Stolin in western Belarus, has been convicted of bribery and sentenced to seven years in prison and forfeiture of 50 percent of property. In addition to
that, he will be ineligible for any administrative positions for five years upon release.
Mr. Golovach had criminal charges brought against him back in late 2000. A local court has found him guilty of taking bribes, ranging from dozens to hundreds of US dollars, from his own subordinates for favors such as assignment to a new bus or a profitable route, or assistance with bus repairs.
Mikashevichi, a community of some 14,500 people in southern Belarus, has applied to the government of the Brest region for being granted town status. Mikashevichi's three previous applications, filed in 1982, 1986 and 1987, were all rejected by the Council of Ministers while Belarus was still a republic within the Soviet Union. Now the matter is in the hands of the Brest Regional Soviet.
The application has already been approved in Luninets, the capital of the district. Town status would give Mikashevichi no special privileges, so it is rather a matter of ambition, an official in Luninets commented to
BelaPAN.
Mikashevichi has a large state-run granite plant called Granit, a precast concrete factory called Spetszhelezobeton, as well as several construction companies. It has a river port, a railroad station, a hospital, a health resort, a Palace of Culture, and four general education schools.
Authorities in Brest in southwestern Belarus have launched a long-awaited operation to decontaminate the so-called Facility 802, a former
reloading point for radioactive ore in the very center of the 300,000 city.
Up to the 1990s, Facility 802 was used to reload radioactive are coming from East Germany from European-gauge railroad cars into wider-gauge cars common in the former USSR. Throughout the 90s, any projects to
decontaminate the area kept bumping up against a lack of funds.
This summer, Belarus' Council of Ministers finally ordered 1 billion rubels in public funds to be allocated to move radioactive soil from Facility 802 to a designated burial site. A Brest-based building contractor, Brestvodstroi, won a tender to implement the project. Brestvodstroi has begun digging at the burial site. Sources tell BelaPAN no funds have actually been allocated so far, so new delays are not unlikely.
A district judge in Brest on October 16 imposed a fine of 52,500 rubels on election observer Grigory Varvashevich for obstructing the local election commission and disobeying police officers during the
September 9 presidential election.
Mr. Varvashevich, who observed the voting process as a representative of the Vyasna human rights center, was briefly detained on September 9 after he attempted to enter the polling station when the precinct commission was counting votes.
Police said in a report that the observer could enter the polling station by consent of the precinct commission's chairperson only. On the same day, Mr. Varvashevich also attended a court hearing on his suit against the chairwoman of the precinct commission, Larisa Mozhaiskaya, and the police officers who arrested him on the polling day. He demands 550,000 rubels in damages, saying that his detention was illegal. On October 19, the judge is to question witnesses.
31 October 2001