20.10.2009 Belarus leaps 4 positions in Reporters without Borders Press Freedom Index

The Reporters without Borders international organization has issued its annual index of freedom of the press, placing Belarus 151st out of 175 countries. ‘Indicators point to a deterioration in the press freedom situation in almost all of the former Soviet Republics except Georgia (81st) and, to a lesser extent, Belarus (151st), whose government has initiated a cautious and so far limited improvement in its relations with the press as part of a renewed dialogue with the EU. It is hard at this stage to predict whether this ripple on the surface will swell or fade away’, says the report.

20.10.2009 More fines awarded to participants of 16 October memorial picket

On 19 October Judge Ilya Svirydau of Homel Chyhunachny Court fined Valery Rybchanka, head of the Belarusian Party of Communists’ Zhlobin district office, BYR 700,000. Mr.Rybchanka is a tenth activists convicted for participating in the 16 October Hanchar and Krasouski memorial action. The total amount of fines is now BYR 10,325,000. Mr.Rybchanka says he is not surprised by the verdict: ‘Our trials are a conveyor. Once the authorities place you on the conveyor, you WILL be punished.

20.10.2009 UN Human Rights Committee registers complaint by activist Halina Yubko

The Geneva-based UN Human Rights Committee has registered an individual complaint submitted by Minsk resident Halina Yubko, the Nasha Niva newspaper reports. In her interview with the BelaPAN news agency, Mrs.Yubko said that on 19 January 2007 she applied for holding a picket to Minsk city authorities. She, together with 50 other women from all over the country, was going to express her dissent to the conviction judgments awarded to their relatives for civil and criminal offences. The picket was meant to attract public and governmental attention to the issue of violating Constitutional rights and international treaties while considering criminal and civil cases.

20.10.2009 Military enlistment office denies alternative service to believers

On October 19 the court of Tsentralny district of Homel continued hearings in the criminal case against a member of Jehovah's Witnesses, Zmitser Smyk.

As noted by “Radio Svaboda”, at the instigation of city military enlistment office, the prosecutor’s office charges Smyk of draft evasion.

On the initiative if judge Ryhor Dzmitrenka who is ion charge of the case of the believer, not only a representative of the military enlistment office Bursevich, but the city’s chief enlistment officer, colonel Vyachaslau Tsatsaryn.