The lawyer of jailed opposition presidential candidate Uladzimer Nyaklyaeu has been able to see him for the first time in a month.
Poland says it will host a fund-raising conference next week to aid the Belarus opposition movements following a crackdown on antigovernment demonstrations protesting President Alyaksandr Lukashenka's reelection last month.
The EU says it's preparing to impose a far wider travel ban on Belarusian officials than the bloc took following Minsk's widely criticized election in 2006. The expected move -- at a foreign ministers' meeting on January 31 – comes as the U.S. plans to strengthen its own sanctions against Belarus and increase financial support for the country's beleaguered civil society.
A senior U.S. State Department official says the United States will expand existing sanctions against Belarus in response the government's brutal crackdown on peaceful protesters in the wake of last December's presidential election. The move comes just days before the European Union is to vote on its own sanctions against the government in Minsk.
The campaign manager for a Belarusian opposition presidential candidate has been released from jail. Uladzimer Kobets headed Andrey Sannikau's campaign in the December 19 presidential election. He was one of hundreds of opposition activists arrested for taking part in the mass rally in Minsk on December 19-20 to protest official election results.
Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka today accused neighboring Poland of plotting to oust him in order to redraw the border between the two countries. Speaking to parliament, Lukashenka claimed Warsaw wants to move the border 250 kilometers east to the Belarusian capital Minsk. Lukashenka has previously accused Poland and Germany of plotting to overthrow him -- claims both countries have rejected.
Prominent Belarusian athlete Andrey Vilkin has lost a university teaching job because of his participation in a mass protest over December's disputed presidential election. Vilkin, a lecturer at the Belarusian National University's Physical Education Department, was fired from his job at the university this week. Vilkin was arrested by Minsk police at an opposition rally on December 19.
Committee for State Security (KGB) officers have searched the homes of the regional leaders of a Belarusian opposition party and human rights organization.
Preliminary hearings ended today in the case of a Belarusian journalist who is being sued by his former newspaper for libel. Journalist Ales Lyauchuk says he was fired for refusing to criticize opposition actions last December following the presidential election. The newspaper, "Znamya yunosti," is demanding Lyauchuk publicly refute that statement.
Danila Klyauko, a member of the opposition United Civic Party, told RFE/RL that the four people refused to present a search warrant to him. One of them had a video camera and filmed the search procedure.
Belarusian journalist Henadz Barbarych was briefly detained by the Committee for State Security (KGB) while interviewing relatives of jailed activists.
Cowardly. Obsequious. Meaningless. That's how a new report is describing the approach of many Western governments and global institutions toward the world's repressive regimes.
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