BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

29/05/2007

Activists in Prague protest against persecution of Belarussians

By Prague Daily Monitor/CTK /

Prague, May 28 (CTK) - A group of activists from the Czech Amnesty International (AI) branch and the Free Belarus group today protest against the prosecution of five members of the Malady Front (Young front) organisation outside the Belarussian embassy in Prague.

"It is absurd to prosecute somebody over their membership of an unregistered organisation," Milan Minarik from the Free Belarus.

The Malady Front promotes democracy and reacts to the fact that the Belarussian regime limits freedom of speech, a representative of the Amnesty International said.

The trial of the five members of Malady Front is held in Minsk today.

Aleksei Yanushevsky from Malady Front said the group included some 500 activists and about a thousand of followers in Belarus. He pointed to the fact that the activities of any unregistered organisation in Belarus is against the law. He added that only pro-government groups serving the regime can be registered.

Yanushevsky is one of the activists prosecuted in Belarus. He received political asylum in the Czech Republic several days ago.

The participants in the protest want to hand over a letter to the Belarussian embassy in Prague demanding changes in Belarussian law that would prevent discrimination against people who freely express their opinions.

Source:

http://launch.praguemonitor.com/en/94/czech_politics/7214/