Minsk authorities ban picket in memory of Yury Zakharanka

This time, the authorities motivated their denial in the following way: ‘holding of mass events is not allowed at the distance of less than 200 meters from pedestrian underpasses, metro stations’, ucpb.org informs.

‘Yury Zakharanka is a member of our party. Naturally, we cannot ignore this date,’ said Anatol Paulau, Chairperson of the Minsk city UCP branch. ‘We submitted an application for holding a picket. And the place for the picketing is in fact in the waste ground, where his disappearance took place. There are no transport roads and pedestrian underpasses there’...

Anatol Paulau noted that such a reaction of the authorities was predictable, and in the situation being what it is the anniversary of Yury Zakharanka's abduction ‘is most likely to be marked as before, by gathering of people with his portraits’.

Bear in mind that vice speaker of the 13th Supreme Soviet of Belarus, Chairperson of the Central Election Commission Viktar Hanchar and his friend, businessman leader Anatol Krasouski, a former Interior Ministry head Yury Zakharanka who joined the opposition, as well as a camera operator of the Russian ORT TV channel Zmitser Zavadski went missing in 1999-2000 in Belarus.

The world community constantly states the necessity to shed light on the fate of Belarusian oppositionists. The demands to establish the truth about their disappearances is contained in the resolutions of the UN Commission on Human Rights, of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and the OSCE.

Former commander of the special purpose squad Dzmitry Paulichenka, former interior ministers of Belarus Uladzimir Navumau and Yury Sivakou, former Secretary of the Security Council Viktar Sheiman are suspected by the international community of involvement in disappearances of former interior minister Yury Zakharanka, politician Viktar Hanchar, businessman Anatol Krasouski, and journalist Zmitser Zavadski. They are banned from entering the US and EU countries.