Mailing List Service Felist.Com -*-------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHARTER'97 BELARUS NEWS UPDATE February 22, 2002 read the details at www.charter97.org/e/index.phtml ---------------------------------------------------------------- UN SECURITY COUNCIL ALARMED OVER BELARUS VIOLATION OF IRAQ EMBARGO Members of the UN Security Council discussed the press reports, reading that the Belarusian authorities have held training courses for the Iraqi officers, which is a clear breach of the UN-imposed sanctions on Iraq, Radio Svaboda quotes the Security Councils diplomat as saying. As you remember, in October 2001 the Belorusskaya Delovaya Gazeta reported that 10 Iraqi officers had been invited past fall to engage in training military course on the territory of Belarus. The diplomat stated that the Security Council would get back to this issue and may even demand clarifications from the Belarusian government. ---------------------------------------------------------------- OSCE NOT OPPOSED TO BELARUS MEMBERSHIP SUSPENSION Reaction of the Parliamentary Assembly to the statement of the Belarusian authorities on the possibility of Belarus leaving OSCE or having its status suspended, was formulated in one short word: Fine. The word was pronounced by the OSCE PA president Adrian Severin, while addressing the Belarusian ambassador in Austria Viktor Gaisenok. Such a form of official OSCE reaction had been preliminarily coordinated with the OSCE Chairman-in-Office Jaime Gama. ---------------------------------------------------------------- LUKASHENKA DEALS WITH OPPONENTS SAYS UTA TSAPF Winter session of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly began its activities with the session of the Permanent Council, at which the OSCE PA deputies were presented a text of the special report of the OSCE PA for Belarus. In early February this year the group, headed by Mrs.Tsapf, paid a visit to Minsk and presented in a 40-page report its vision of the political situation in Belarus. In her report head of the working group Uta Tsapf noted: Lukashenka deals with his rivals wherever he finds them: in economy and mass media. ---------------------------------------------------------------- AUTHORITIES THREATEN, BLACKMAIL FAMILIES OF UGLYANITSA, ZHERNOSEK The authorities are breathing threats and blackmail against the families of the Krai activist Andrei Zhernosek and former KGB officer Gennady Uglyanitsa, who accused the Belarusian authorities of abducting opposition politicians and journalists. As you know, both men had received political asylum in Norway, although their families remain settled in Belarus. ---------------------------------------------------------------- ANDREI KLIMAU TO BE RELEASE IN MARCH? Komsomolskaya Pravda in Belarus Yesterday morning a commission sitting took place where the question of the conditional earlier release of the most famous prisoner of the colony 15/1 was weighed up. The prison administration and officials from the Frunze district executive committee have come to a decision that Andrei Klimau deserves a conditional earlier liberation. Apparently there are no reasons to keep him in prison: Klimau has served two thirds of the six-year prison term. ---------------------------------------------------------------- PENSIONER SACRIFICED HIS PENSION TO LUKASHENKA Resident of the Zhabinka district center Gennady Samoilenko decided to give up his first pension, mailing it by post to Alyaxandar Lukashenka. By so doing the retired man intended to attract the attention of the public to the Belarusian pensioners dire straits. Samoilenkos pension size equals to 68 thousand rubles ($41). The man, who has recently reached the retirement age, considers such income ridiculous. ---------------------------------------------------------------- PA OSCE DELEGATION TO VISIT BELARUS IN MAY A special PA OSCE working group on Belarus is to visit Belarus in May this year. It is supposed that this time its visit would not be confined to Minsk, and the deputies would visit a number of regions. According to Uta Zapf, the head of the group, will enable them to be acquainted with the situation in the country more effectively. ---------------------------------------------------------------- UCP OUSTED FROM MINSK OFFICE Minsk authorities demand from the United Civil Party leadership to leave the occupied office by March 15 at the latest. BelaPAN was told in the UCP press-center that the municipal authorities explain it by the fact that the building, in which the partys office is located, needs capital repair. In their turn, UCP representatives deem that the authorities are violating their own commitments and threatened to submit a court complaint. ---------------------------------------------------------------- BELARUSIAN COLLEGIUMS DENIED ACCOMMODATION The Belarusian collegiums had to stop classes and weekly public lectures in the Yanka Kupala library of Minsk. The librarys leadership annulled the contract on space rent, which had been pending for four years. The reason for the ban on the use of the office, as said by Elena Kubyshkina, is the incorrect use by the collegiums of the librarys name. In other words, the director is dissatisfied that the collegiums, advertising their performances, mentioned the librarys involvement in the matter. ---------------------------------------------------------------- ANOTHER NGO LIQUIDATED The Department of Justice of the Belarusian regional committee petitioned the court with a request to liquidate the public amalgamation Brest regional center of supporting the public initiatives Vezha. The organizations members are now readying for the court action. ---------------------------------------------------------------- USA BLAME BELARUS OVER SELLING ARMS TO ROGUE STATES The United States believe that Minsk sells weaponry to the so-called rogue states and terrorist regimes, said on Thursday deputy assistant to the US Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasia Steven Pifer, reports Reuters. The reason for the US governments concern is the numerous reports from the trustworthy sources about Belarus implication in the shipment of ammunition to the states and organizations, supportive of terrorism, said Pifer after his three-day long Minsk mission. The US State Department also stated that Belarus is training the military from the rogue countries. In particular, according to Pifer, in fall 2001 Belarus trained the Iraqi officers on how to handle the anti-aircraft complex S-300. Iraq may use these complexes with only one goal in mind to shoot down US airplanes, which are patrolling the Iraqs no-fly zone upon the UN mandate, said Pifer. ---------------------------------------------------------------- OSCE IGNORES NATIONAL ASSEMBLY Belarusian authorities protest against the national assemblys non-involvement in the OSCE PA session. The statement on the matter on behalf of the Belarusian government was voiced by the Belarus representative with the OSCE Viktor Gaisenok at the session of the organizations Permanent Council. As stressed at the briefing in the Belarusian FM by the FMs press-secretary Pavel Latushko, the statement was caused by the fact that the Belarusian parliaments delegation received no official invitation to the OSCE PA session, held on February 21-22 in Vienna. ---------------------------------------------------------------- POLAND REMINDS BELARUS OF HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES In Kharkiv during the meeting of the leaders of the Security Councils of Belarus, Russia, Poland and Ukraine, Polish representatives reminded to their Belarusian counterparts about human rights abuses in Belarus. We have drawn attention of the head of the Security Council of Belarus to the human rights abuses in his country, -- informed the journalists the heads of the National Security Bureau of the Polish Presidential administration Marek Sivec. The head of the Polish National Security Bureau also added that the letter of the wives of the disappeared Belarusian politicians, which was received by Alexander Kwasniewski in January, would not be left without response. ---------------------------------------------------------------- WARSAW COURT RULED AGAINST VATSLAV MARKEVICHS EXTRADITION TO BELARUS The Warsaw district court voiced its verdict concerning the extradition case of the former big Belarusian businessman Vatslav Markevich. The jury ruled that his extradition to Belarus is inadmissible. Markevichs defenders claimed that their clients case is politically motivated, as far as the case on the $2mln credit, which, according to the Belarusian procuracy, Markevich received through swindling, was shut by the economic court five years ago, while in 2000, when the suspect officially gave up the Belarusian citizenship, the authorities didnt object to that at all. According to his lawyers, the activities of the Belarusian procuracy in this extradition case are closely related to the arrests of leading directors and businessmen, which are commonplace in Belarus of today. ---------------------------------------------------------------- GOVERNMENT DEMONSTRATES COURTS DEPENDENCE ON IT yusnews.info A special judiciary commission, set up upon Alyaxandar Lukashenkas order, is operating in Minsk and Minsk region, inspecting the effectiveness of court, procuracy, lawyers, police and the Ministry of Justice. Most commission members represent the executive. The lawyers believe that by so doing they violate the very principle of the independence of courts and attorneys. ---------------------------------------------------------------- WHICH TEAM COSTS MOST? NHL.ru A lot has been said these days about the astounding Belarus ice hockey team victory over the Swedes. One thing not mentioned so far is the annual budgets of two teams. The totaled income of Tre Crunur exceeds that of the Belarusian hockey players by 45 times! As for our tonights rivals the Canadians they cost 125 times more that Vladimir Krikunovs squad. ---------------------------------------------------------------- WHOLESALE PRICES FOR OIL IN BELARUS REDUCED In Belarus wholesale prices for oil were reduced. As RIA Novosti was informed yesterday by the state concern Belneftechim, it happened because the price of Russian oil for Belarus was reduced. In the result the wholesale petrol costs reduced by 4%, fuel oil by 10%. The costs of the diesel fuel remained unchanged. However, the retail prices for these products remained the same. Today in Belarus a retail price of a liter of petrol A-76 is 29 cents, AI-92 costs 34 cents, AI-95 costs 40 cents.---------------------------------------------------------------- CHARTER'97 BELARUS NEWS UPDATE February 22, 2002 read the details at www.charter97.org/e/index.phtml -*-------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe: http://felist.com/member/unsub?grp=media.charter97 http://felist.com/ mailto:ask@felist.com