Activists in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, picketed the Belarusian Embassy on March 25 to protest Minsk's repressive political and religious policies, RFE/RL’s Belarusian and Ukrainian services report.
Parishioners from the New Life evangelical church and activists from the Youth Platform movement said they were expressing solidarity with Christians in Belarus who, they said, face pressure from the Belarusian government.
The protesters recalled that Pastor Yaraslav Lukasik and Bishop Venyamin Brukh had been deported from Belarus recently and that the New Life parish in Minsk is being persecuted.
The activists signed a petition demanding an end to pressure on Christian churches and on the independent mass media in Belarus, as well as a halt to oppressive measures against members of the country's political opposition. The petition also demands that all political prisoners be released.
The protesters tried to hand the petition in person to a representative of the Belarusian Embassy, but an official told them that the petition should be sent via regular mail instead.