A group of opposition politicians has sent a petition to Alyaksandr Lukashenka, asking him to release former presidential candidate Alyaksandr Kazulin.
They urged him to “show civil courage and honesty, and use his power for the good – the immediate release of Kazulin from prison.”
The petition carries signatures of politicians Anatol Lyabedzka, Viktar Ivashkevich, Yury Khadyka, Syarhey Kalyakin, Pavel Sevyarynets and Vyachaslaw Siwchyk, as well as of small business activist Alyaksandr Makayew and independent unionist Alyaksandr Bukhvostaw.
“The people were forced to appeal to the top-ranking addressee as without his personal interference, high judicial institutions cannot review the ruling in Alyaksandr Kazulin’s case for well-known reasons,” Ihar Rynkevich, a close associate of the imprisoned politician, told BelaPAN.
Mr. Rynkevich said that the authorities had legal tools of reviewing the judgment in the “politically motivated” case, pointing to an appeal that was submitted by the defense team to Prosecutor General Pyotr Miklashevich against Dr. Kazulin’s sentence earlier .
A daughter of Dr. Kazulin, Volha, sent a separate letter of appeal to Mr. Lukashenka.
Earlier this month, Volha Kazulin and Mr. Rynkevich complained to the United Nations Human Rights Committee about Dr. Kazulin’s sentence.
Alyaksandr Kazulin, 51, rector of Belarusian State University between 1996 and 2003 who was a candidate in Belarus' 2006 presidential election, was arrested during a police crackdown on a peaceful post-election opposition march on March 25, 2006. He was found guilty of hooliganism and the organization of group actions disturbing the public peace.
He has been held in the Vitsba 3 correctional facility near Vitsyebsk since September 21, 2006.
In March, Dr. Kazulin was reelected in absentia as chairman of the BSDP.
The Minsk City Executive Committee has not granted permission for a commemorative ceremony at a memorial to Soviet soldiers killed in Afghanistan.
The application for the rally was filed by Ales Mikhalevich, deputy head of the Belarusian Popular Front, and Alyaksandr Kamarowski, chairman of the National Public Association of Afghan War Disabled Veterans. They wanted to hold the ceremony at the Island of Tears concurrently with an anti-Communist forum scheduled to be held at the Minsk office of the Belarusian Popular Front on November 3 in protest against a coming large-scale meeting of Communists from 60 countries.
“Those killed in Afghanistan also were hostages of the USSR drive for world domination,” Mr. Mikhalevich told BelaPAN.
The ceremony also was aimed at commemorating 2,000 people who were killed in Afghanistan’s Salang tunnel, a crucial military link to the South, after a tanker truck blew up there on November 3, 1982 and the fire engulfed a military convoy.
In the written reply, the city authorities said that the application ran counter to regulations governing mass events, without elaborating. When Mr. Mikhalevich reached the committee by phone he was told that the application had been filed late.
Mr. Mikhalevich told BelaPAN that he was set to complaint to court about the denial. He said that the application had been sent 15 days before the scheduled date of the ceremony as required by regulations.
The chairman of the Babruysk City Executive Committee assured members of the local Jewish community earlier this week that the authorities would do their utmost to prevent vandal attacks on the city’s Jewish cemetery.
Dzmitry Banakhaw, the city’s top official, met with the Babruysk Jewish community’s representatives and Leanid Levin, chairman of the Union of Belarusian Jewish Public Associations and Communities, to discuss the matter on October 29, Leanid Rubinshteyn, leader of the community, told BelaPAN.
The official promised that all cemeteries in the city in the Mahilyow region would be fenced off and guarded at nighttime.
“We hope that the authorities will manage to solve the problem of vandal attacks on city cemeteries before the end of the year,” Mr. Rubinshteyn said.
Unidentified vandals smashed 15 tombstones at the Jewish cemetery on Minskaya Street on the night between October 10 and 11, the fourth attack on the graveyard since the beginning of the year.
Anti-Semitic graffiti appeared near the cemetery and grave fencing was damaged earlier this year. The city’s other cemeteries also were vandalized. None of the perpetrators has been punished, although some have been identified, according to Mr. Rubinshteyn.
Babruysk made headlines this month after Alyaksandr Lukashenka blamed Jewish residents for turning the city into a “sty.”
“If you were in Babruysk, you saw in what condition the city was. Entering it was a fearful experience! It was a sty! This was mainly a Jewish city. Well, you know how Jews treat the place where they’re living. Look at Israel,” Mr. Lukashenka told a group of Russian reporters on October 12.
A new criminal charge has been formally brought against young opposition activist Artur Finkevich who is serving a “restricted freedom” term in Mahilyow.
He has been charged with “evasion of service of his sentence” under Article 145 of the Criminal Code for alleged misconduct at the open-type correctional institution where he was held, opposition leader Pavel Sevyarynets told BelaPAN.
If found guilty as charged, Mr. Finkevich, who is currently held in Mahilyow’s pre-trial detention center, may be sentenced to up to three years in prison.
According to Mr. Sevyarynets, Artur’s lawyer, who visited him at the detention center on October 30, said that the date of the trial was yet to be set. The venue of the trial was not known either.
Arrested on January 30, 2006, Mr. Finkevich was sentenced to a two-year "restricted freedom" term in May 2006 on a "malicious hooliganism" charge for spray-painting "We want a new one (instead of Alyaksandr Lukashenka)!" on a building. In June 2007, he was denied a release on parole.
Restricted freedom means that the convict has to live in a sort of barracks, work for a specified enterprise or organization or find a job by himself in a designated area, and report to the barrack administration at an appointed time every day.
Souhayr Belhassen, president of the International Federation of Human Rights (IFHR) who is on a visit to Minsk, has asked Interior Minister Uladzimir Navumaw for a meeting with imprisoned opposition activist Zmitser Dashkevich.
Human rights defender Ales Byalyatski told BelaPAN that the IFHR president had expressed the wish to meet with the imprisoned opposition activist in her request for a meeting with officials of the interior ministry. However, he said, Ms. Belhassen has not yet received any reply to the request.
Barys Haretski, an associate of Mr. Dashkevich, told reporters, that the meeting between Ms. Belhassen and the imprisoned politician was particularly important now that the latter was awaiting his new trial. “We hope that Ms. Belhassen’s request would somehow influence the Belarusian authorities,” he said.
The leader of an opposition youth group called Malady Front (Young Front), who is currently serving an 18-month prison sentence, is facing a charge of refusal to give testimony under Article 402 of the Criminal Code. The charge, which carries a prison sentence of up to three years, stems from the activist’s refusal to testify in a criminal case against another Malady Front member, Ivan Shyla, who also was accused of acting on behalf of an unregistered organization and received an official warning in a trial earlier this month.
The case has already been sent to the Shklow District Court.
Mr. Dashkevich has maintained his innocence, saying that he had the right to refuse to testify under a law that allows people not to give testimony against themselves or those close to them.
Mr. Dashkevich was arrested on September 15, 2006 on a charge of acting on behalf of an unregistered organization under Article 193-1 of the Criminal Code.
At his closed-door trial in October, he was found guilty as charged and sent to a minimum-security correctional institution.
International observers condemned the politician’s sentence as politically motivated and Amnesty International declared Mr. Dashkevich a prisoner of conscience.
He has been serving his term in a correctional institution in Shklow, Mahilyow region, since December 7. In early June, he was denied release on parole because of his allegedly poor conduct. On July 20, he turned 26.
Malady Front has made five attempts to obtain registration with the justice ministry but to no avail.
Civil society activists held commemorative ceremonies for the victims of the Stalinist terror at several places in Minsk on October 29.
A group of some 25 people took part in the commemorations, including Pavel Sevyarynets, a co-chairman of the founding committee for the Belarusian Christian Democracy party; Aleh Makayew, a leader of sole entrepreneurs; artist Mikola Kupava; prominent opposition politician Vyachaslaw Siwchyk; historian Larysa Androsik; Uladzimir Kishkurna, a leader of the Belarusian Popular Front; and members of the Adradzenne (Revival) choir.
In particular, they visited Loshytsa Park, Chalyuskintsaw Park and Kurapaty, where mass executions took place in the 1930s and 1940s.
They laid flowers and wreaths tied with white-red-white ribbons saying, “To the Victims of Stalinism in the Year of Memory,” put up candles and observed one minute of silence in remembrance of the victims of Stalinist purges. Orthodox priest Leanid Akalovich led those present in prayer for the slain innocents, “who died for our Belarus and its independence.”
The group also visited the site of the former Trastsyanets Nazi death camp to commemorate prominent World War II nationalist Vintsent Hadlewski (Wincenty Gadlewski) who was executed there by the Nazis in 1942.
Vintsent Hadlewski was born in a village near Vawkavysk in 1888. He graduated from a Catholic seminary in Vilna (Vilnius) and earned a master's degree in theology from the St. Petersburg Catholic Academy. He became one of the first priests to conduct services in Belarusian. In 1918, he was a member of the provisional government (Rada) of the Belarusian National Republic and a founder of the Belarusian Christian Democracy party. When Western Belarus was under the rule of Poland, Hadlewski served as a professor at a Belarusian seminary in Nyasvizh and spent two years in a Warsaw prison for Belarusian propaganda. In the 1930s, he founded and edited the newspaper Bielaruski Front, in which he developed his theories about Belarusian politics and statehood. After the Soviet invasion of 1939, Hadlewski moved first to Warsaw and then to Berlin. In October 1941, he was appointed to serve in Minsk as chief school inspector. He believed that the Germans would grant the Belarusians at least broad autonomy if not independence. He was one of the founders of the Belarusian Independence Party and a leader of Belarusian People's Self-assistance, underground nationalist organizations viewed by the Soviet authorities as collaborationist with the Nazis. However, Hadlewski was arrested by the German police on Christmas Eve 1942 and shot at Trastsyanets on the same evening.
Historians say that no less than 5,000 people were executed by the NKVD in 1932 and 1933 in the forest where Chalyuskintsaw Park stands now. //BelaPAN
Many Protestants communities across Belarus on October 28 and 29 staged prayer services, asking God to forgive the Belarusian people’s sins committed during the Stalinist purges, Antony Bokun, the pastor of a Minsk-based Protestant community called St. John the Forerunner Church, told BelaPAN.
The prayer services were held on the occasion of Dzyady (ancestors’ remembrance day).
Before the prayer at the St. John the Forerunner Church, the believers were shown video materials about Belarusians who have survived the Stalinist purges.
Members of another Minsk-based Protestant community, God’s Grace, met with political victims to hear stories about their prosecution in the Soviet era. They prayed that the “black Communist past never return to the Belarusian land.” Priest Aleh Akulenka noted that millions of innocent people had been killed as a “sacrifice to communism."
Barys Charnahlaz, the pastor of Jesus Christ Church, said during the service that the future of the Belarusian people depended on their attitude to the past.
“The church should see the trouble of the people and address not only the problem’s symptoms but also the spiritual routes of the reality surrounding us. Only repenting of sins of ungodliness and manslaughter will make the revival of the Belarusian people possible,” Mr. Charnahlaz said.
Alyaksandr Lukashenka is expected to inspect the renovation of the building of the National Opera and Ballet Theater in November, Culture Minister Uladzimir Matsveychuk, said at Tuesday’s news conference.
“You all know that if the head of state visits a project site, he always expresses a lot of critical remarks and all of them are for the good for the project,” the minister noted.
He expressed hope that the visit would result in a decision to build housing for the theater’s employees. “At least actors of the theater will ask for this,” he added.
The renovation of the National Opera and Ballet Theater, built in the 1930s, started in October 2005 and was set to be completed in 2008. A total of 34.5 billion rubels ($16.2 million) was reportedly provided for the project in 2006 and 73.3 billion rubels was allocated for renovation work in 2007.
The theater's ballet company moved to the Palace of the Republic after the renovation started, while operas began to be staged at the House of Officers.
The Minsk office of the Belarusian Popular Front (BPF) will host an anti-Communist forum scheduled for November 3.
Attending the event, titled Toward Communism-Free Future, will be scholars, politicians, public figures, priests and delegates from Russia and Ukraine, Ales Mikhalevich, deputy chairman of the BPF, told BelaPAN.
The organizers include Mr. Mikhalevich, opposition politician Pavel Sevyarynets, as well as historian Ihar Kuznyatsow, an expert in Stalin’s purges. They initially expected up to 1,000 people to participate in the forum staged in protest against a large-scale meeting of Communists from 60 countries to be held in the Belarusian capital city in early November.
“The public strongly protest the expansion of Communist imperialism,” Mr. Mikhalevich said.
The administration of the Palace of Culture of the MAZ bus and truck manufacturer had refused to rent the venue out to the organizers of the anti-Communist forum, saying that a sporting event was scheduled to be held there on November 3.
Turkish businesses are interested in cooperation with Belarus, Emine Birnur Fertekligil, the outgoing ambassador of Turkey to Belarus, said in an interview with BelaPAN.
“With regard to this, Turkey is expecting to receive the support and assistance of the relevant Belarusian authorities to the eventual numerous projects the two sides can realize together,” the diplomat said.
The ambassador noted that Turkey would continue developing trade and economic cooperation with Belarus, adding that bilateral trade had more than doubled in the last three years.
Ms. Fertekligil expressed a high opinion of relations between Belarus and Turkey in the sphere of tourism, saying that over 95,000 Belarusian tourists had visited Turkey earlier this year and the number of Turkish tourists spending holidays in Belarus also was on the rise.
According to the ambassador, Turkey was the first country to recognize Belarus’ independence and open its embassy in Minsk. “Our bilateral relations have been developing pragmatically on the basis of mutual benefit and in the spirit of cooperation and dialogue. We consider our relations as important also from the point of view of maintaining peace, stability, security and prosperity in our whole region. We are pleased by the fact that our cooperation has been developing in a friendly and constructive atmosphere,” she stressed.
The diplomat noted that accession to the European Union was “one of the fundamental priorities of the Turkish foreign policy.” “While concentrating our efforts on this main goal and harmonizing ourselves with the EU policies in line with the accession process, we shall sincerely do our best to preserve and further develop the existing friendship and cooperation between our peoples. Turkey, in every field, is ready to share its own experience and to furnish whatever assistance for Belarus for an increasing dialogue and integration with international community,” she said.
Turkey observes its main national holiday, Republic Day, on October 29.
31 October 2007