Day of Solidarity: Oppositional rally to take place on October Square in Minsk
- 16.04.2009, 9:02
A protest with a demand to release all political prisoners is to take place on April 16 at 6 p.m. on October Square in Minsk.
The Day of Solidarity with Belarus is marked for three years on the 16th day of every month. For more than three years in Minsk, in different regions of Belarus and abroad people gather on the squares of their towns which is a sign of solidarity with the families of the forcibly abducted and repressed activists of the Belarusian opposition.
In February 2009 in Belarus leaders of entrepreneurs’ movement Mikola Autukhovich, Yury Lyavonau and Uladzimir Asipenka. Autukhovich and Lyavonau are former political prisoners sentenced to imprisonment on falsified charges for defense of rights of businessmen.
On March 7 a human rights activist Yana Palyakova committed suicide. She had been sentenced to 2.5 years of imprisonment a few days earlier.
Participants of the Process of Fourteen Alyaksei Bondar, Artsyom Dubski, Mikhal Kryvau, Mikhal Pashkevich, Ales Straltsou, Ales Charnyshou, Tatsyana Tsishkevich, Mikhail Subach and Paval Vinahradau, Maxim Dashuk and Alyaksandr Barazenka remain limited in their rights. They had been sentenced to restriction of freedom for participation in protest rallies of businessmen.
Yesterday a Young Front activist Artsyom Dubski was released from a remand prison. He had been charged with violation of the rules of serving the sentence. The oppositionist has been released only with a written undertaking not to leave the place, and he is to stand trial soon.
“We should demand full release of political prisoners in Belarus. Leaders of entrepreneurs are held in prison for three months already. Dubski faces a threat of a new detention. Every participant of the Process of Fourteen can be detained any moment. The international community should pay attention to the fact that there are political prisoners in Belarus, that pressure and crackdown on oppositionists continue, that there is no freedom of expression here,” stated an activist of “European Belarus” campaign Yauhen Afnagel stated in an interview to the Charter’97 press-centre.