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Vawkavysk District Court fined the chief editor of Mestnaya Gazeta newspaper 50 basic values (1 200 000 Belarusian rubles). Judge Yury Yakimovich considered the hunger-strike of the defendant as unauthorized picket. (26-NOV-04)
 
 

On 25 November the college board of Minsk City Court rejected the demand by Volha Zavadskaya, the mother of cameraman Zmitser Zavadski who disappeared in July 2000, to renew the investigation. (26-NOV-04)
 

An open Republic of Belarus is a threat to President Lukashenko´s dictatorship. Sanctions and isolation will strengthen the status quo, said representatives from the Belarusian opposition when they visited the Human Rights House in Oslo the 18th of November in a conference organised by the Norwegian Helsinki Committee and NUPI, the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs. (22-NOV-04).
 

Human Rights Center “Viasna” has already prepared “Preliminary monitoring on facts of tortures and other inhumane treatment of citizens of Belarus”, based on the principles of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. The English version of the report will be soon available at the “Viasna” site: www.spring96.org (16-NOV-04)
 

The 67-year-old pensioner from Vawkavysk Valiantsina Saldatava keeps hungering for the 19th day already. That’s how she protests against the falsification of the results of the election, persecution of the independent Mestnaya Gazeta and the inaction of the authorities in solution of the housing problems.

On 1 November Belarusian Association of Journalists addressed Information Minister Uladzimir Rusakevich with an open letter, requesting to cancel the order about suspension of the “Mestnaya Gazeta” newspaper. By that day the editor-in-chief of this independent newspaper had been on hunger strike for already 13 days. (4-NOV-2004)

62 filled referendum ballots were found in a garbage can in the city of Barysaw. The activist of the United Civil Party, former candidate to deputies in Barysaw village circuit Viktar Harbachow says that a member of his initiative group found them in the garbage can near secondary school #24 of Barysaw, where polling station #42 was situated. (4-NOV-2004)

On 28 September KGB decided to leave Mikhail Marynich in custody for 30 more days “for the interests of investigation. This will be the sixths month of jail for the ex-minister, who has been kept there since 26 April. (4-NOV-2004)

There are already three persons on hunger strike in the Republic of Belarus. All three cases are connected to the Parliamentary election. The first hunger strike was started by the chief editor of “Mestnaya Gazeta” newspaper Andrey Shantarovich. He believes the newspaper was suspended for political reasons so that it couldn’t elucidate the electoral process. (4-NOV-2004)