Marynich being led into court last week The Minsk District Court on 30 December sentenced Belarusian opposition politician Mikhail Marynich, 64, to five years in a high-security prison and confiscation of property. The court found him guilty of misappropriating office equipment that the Dzelavaya Initsyyatyva (Business Initiative) association, of which he was chairman, had received from the U.S. Embassy in Minsk for temporary use. Marynich told the court in his final statement the day before that the case against him was "fabricated by the KGB following an order from the authorities." According to Marynich, the court sentenced him to prevent him from participating in the 2006 presidential election. Marynich's lawyers have announced that they will appeal the verdict.
Marynich being led into court 31 December 2004 -- A prominent Belarusian opposition figure was sentenced to five years in prison yesterday after being convicted by a Minsk court of stealing computers belonging to the U.S. Embassy.
An undated photo of Veranika Charkasava, who was found slain in her Minsk apartment Two media watchdogs have concluded that 2004 was among the deadliest years for journalists in recent history. The Committee to Protest Journalists (CPJ) made the most recent assessment, announcing in early December that 2004 has been the deadliest year for journalists in a decade. Fifty-four journalists had been killed as of 10 December -- the highest death toll since 1994, when 66 were killed, many in Algeria's civil war, Rwanda, and Bosnia-Herzegovina. The World Association of Newspapers noted in November that 10 more journalists had died working this year than in all of 2003.
24 December 2004 -- The United States has called for the release of Belarusian opposition leader Mikhail Marynich.
A U.S.-based organization that tracks the progress of political rights and civil liberties across the world says Russia has fallen to the status of "not free." Freedom House points to a growing trend under President Vladimir Putin to "concentrate political authorities, harass and intimidate the media, and politicize the country's law-enforcement system." Elsewhere, Belarus, Armenia, and Romania also saw setbacks, while the organization found encouraging democratic gains in Georgia and Ukraine. Turkmenistan rated among the most repressive countries.
14 December 2004 -- The European Union today awarded a human rights prize to the Belarusian Association of Journalists.
The European Parliament today awarded its annual Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought to the Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAZh). The prize is the European Union's top human rights award. Parliament President Josep Borrell praised the struggle of the free media in Belarus, saying it serves as a reminder that European values of free speech and democracy have yet to reach the entire continent.
Human rights experts call them "prisoners of conscience." Hundreds of them around the world are forced to live in deplorable conditions in jail cells and prison camps. Many are anonymous and largely forgotten. But others remain in the public eye because rights groups refuse to look away. RFE/RL took the case of a well-known "prisoner of conscience" ahead of the United Nations' International Human Rights Day.
The annual report on child welfare by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) paints another troubling picture of conditions in former Soviet states. The report focuses on three main threats faced by children across the world -- poverty, conflict, and HIV/AIDS -- and says Africa is by far the worst-afflicted continent. But, in an echo of a separate report released in October, it finds that a high number of former Soviet states are not meeting their commitments to improve conditions for the welfare of children.
9 December 2004 (RFE/RL) -- Belarus opposition leader Anatoly Lebedko says he has been charged with slandering President Alyaksandr Lukashenka and could face four years in jail.
Women in traditional Hungarian dress voting in Veresegyhaz, some 30 kilometers east of Budapest The results of the referendum held in Hungary on 5 December defuse the potential danger of new tensions among European states with ethnic Hungarian minorities. Preliminary official results show that voters failed to approve a referendum on whether to give ethnic Hungarians living outside the country the right to become Hungarian citizens and whether to scrap the state health-care system.
President Lukashenka has suggested his country has no use for the IMF (file photo) 3 December 2004 -- The International Monetary Fund (IMF) announced today that it would close its office in Belarus.
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