26 April 2007
Organizers of Chernobyl march point to Chernobyl Chapel on Karastayanavay Street as final destination
Viktar Ivashkevich, deputy chairman of the Belarusian Popular Front (BPF) who is a member of the organizing committee for the opposition's April 25 annual Chernobyl march, said that the marchers would not go to Peoples' Friendship Park on Bangalore Square to hold a rally there as the city authorities proposed.
The march will run along its traditional route from the square in front of the National Academy of Sciences to the Chernobyl Chapel in the park on Karastayanavay Street, Mr. Ivashkevich told BelaPAN.
According to him, twenty-one minutes' silence will be observed near the chapel in commemoration of the Chernobyl victims on the occasion of the 21st anniversary of the nuclear disaster.
Mr. Ivashkevich called on those going to take part in the march to bring candles to light them in memory of the Chernobyl victims.
BPF Deputy Chairman Alyaksey Yanukevich, who was one of the official applicants for the city government's permission to stage the march, told the organizing committee at a meeting on Tuesday that an appeal had been filed with Minsk's Maskowski District Court the previous day against the city government's decision to ban the marchers from going the route planned by the organizers.
The organizing committee for the "Charnobylski Shlyakh" (Path of Chernobyl) march initially wanted it to start on Yakub Kolas Square at 6 p.m. and run on sidewalks along Independence Avenue, Minsk's main thoroughfare, to the square in front of the National Library, where a rally would begin at 8 p.m. The city government proposed that the march should start on the square in front of the National Academy of Sciences and run on sidewalks along Surhanava Street to Peoples' Friendship Park.
"Our constitutional right to freedom of assembly was violated, that is why we expect the court to annul the Minsk City Executive Committee's decision," Mr. Yanukevich said.
Up to 10,000 people took part in last year's Chernobyl march.
http://brestonline.com/en/news/news1082.html