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Recently the education boards of regional executive committees and heads of secondary and higher educational establishments have received the letter of the Ministry of Education #03-24/28, restricted publication “About non-admission of the attempts of involvement of pupils and students in lawless activity of political kind”, signed by the minister Aliaksandr Radzkou. This document confirmed the practice of political persecution of students that has existed for several years already.(11-JUN-2205)

The justice boards of local administrations continue liquidating branches of political parties and NGOs. The formal reason for it is that the juridical addresses of these branches are situated in residential premises. At the same time, the law on political parties and NGOs doesn’t demand from them to have juridical addresses. The authorities, in their turn, don’t provide the branches any possibility to register new juridical addresses, putting various obstacles to it. (11-JUN-2005)

Persecution of believers in the Republic of Belarus started long ago. The real reason for it is concurrence of other religious movements and directions to Russian Orthodox Church, which top-level Belarusian officials consider as a means that can serve promotion of their pro-Russian ideology. Most often religious persecution concerned representatives of non-traditional confessions, which were treated as sects. Now it also touches one of the oldest confessions in the Republic of Belarus, Catholics. (11-JUN-2005)

Minsk: Human Rights Center Viasna expresses its decisive protest against the criminal case against the oppositional activists Paviel Sieviaryniets and Mikalai Statkievich. According to the court verdict, both politicians were sentenced to three years of jail on 31 May. (3-JUNE-05)
 

According to the investigators, the interview given by Hary Pahaniayla to the Swedish television last year contained a libelous statement. In February the criminal charges against Hary Pahaniayla were dropped, the corresponding ruling said that the actions of the human rights activist did not constitute a crime though were libelous with respect to Lukashenka. (30-MAY-2005)

Under the pressure from the ideology department of Minsk City Executive Committee, the managers of the Republic of Belarus Hotel, where a contact Belarus-Sweden conference was due to take place on 20-22 May, refused a rental agreement. And at the last minute the Belarusian Embassy to Sweden refused visas to the Swedish participants of the contact conference, said the press service of the NGO Assembly. (30-MAY-2005)

Hrodna Leninski Court rehabilitated the editor of Glos znad Niemna newspaper who
had been fired by the organizational board of the newspaper’s founder, Union of Poles in the Republic of Belarus, in accordance with the rules of the organization’s statute. At the same time, the Ministry of Justice found incompetent the union’s last assembly, at which the new head of the organization was elected. (13-MAY-2005)

According to Eugeniusz Wappa, chief editor of Niva weekly, on 11 May the procurator’s office of Bialystok, presented to the accused members of the program board of Niva weekly proposals of so called “conditional punishment”. After they refused to take the blame, the judge decided the case would be considered at court. (13-MAY-2005)

Andrei Klimau, deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the 13th Convocation, is kept in investigative isolator since 22 April. The investigation accuses him in organization of a street action on 25 March that allegedly led to mass riot. (13-MAY-2005)