Leo van Doesburg

The protests in Belarus are impressive. Usually, when protests happen, people tend to become agitated and get angry and violent. Property gets destroyed. Sometimes even, authorities play a role in instigating them. But not in #Belarus. Although the police has been using excessive force against protesters, and there are evidences of the torture of protestors in prison, the people of Belarus remained calm, but determined. Especially brave, since public gatherings have been banned in Belarus since 2011. It is also admirable the care people take of public property, even picking up garbage after the protests. The second thing worth noting is that all these people contesting the results of the latest presidential elections did not give into the pressure to lean one way or another. They are not protesting for the West or against Russia; it hasn’t become politicized. There aren’t any EU flags at the protests after the elections (very different from Ukraine a few years ago); they are carryi...

On Saturday 17 December, the Belarisuan Christian Democratic Party (BCD) organized their 4th constituency party, legally necessary in order to legally register and found the party. Find a report about this congress  here. The Belarusian authorities continue to put pressure on the citizens of Belarus, who became founders of the Belarusian Christian Democracy Party. Thus, the head teacher of school № 1 in Minsk demanded of her colleague, who is a BCD founder, to withdraw her signature from the list of the BCD founders, threatening her with problems at work. According to some sources this head teacher has been actively involved in the falsification of votes during elections.

On 23 December, the ECPM and its youth association the ECPYN sent an open letter to the Belarusian ambassadors. Based on the latest developments, both organisations are very worried about the unexpected detentions of political activists that occurred this week. One year after the peaceful demonstrations, followed by extremely harsh measures by the Belarusian authorities, it looks like similar tactics are being used again by the Belarusian government to silence members of the opposition. The open letter is listed below  

On Saturday, 17 December, the party Belarusian Christian Democracy (BCD) held its fourth Constituent Congress in Minsk. The congress gathered 108 delegated from all over Belarus and more than 350 guests, including heads and representatives of diplomatic missions from Great Britain, USA, Germany, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and guests from Austria, Hungary, Ukrain and Russia. Pavel Sieviarynets, the BCD co-chairman, accused to three years of labour camp, regretfully, could not be present at the Congress and the president Vital Rymasheuski was detained shortly after the congress. Fortunately Vital was released after spending five hours at the police. The BCD therefore strongly requested to release and the rehabilitation of Pavel and the 13 other political prisoners: Ales Bialiatski, Andrei Sannikau, Dzimtry Bandarenka, Mikalai Statkevich, Dzmitry Dashkevich, Eduard Lobau, Mikalai Autukhovich, Yauhen Vaskovich, Ihar Alinevich, Aliaksandr Frantskevich, Mikalaj Dziadok, Artsiom Prakapenka a...

BCD leader Pavel Sieviarynets was sentenced to 3 years of forced labour camp; he was set free in the court. Iryna Khalip and Siarhej Martseleu, who were judged together with Pavel , received 2 years of imprisonment with arrest of judgement for 2 years. Relatives and friends, including supporters of the BCD, which came into court with flowers, could meet and embrace Paul's right in the courthouse. In his first interview after his release Pavel Sieviarynets said he did not recognize the sentence as fair. He will fight for the liberation of other political prisoners , in particular already today he is going to visit a number of courts. When asked about tortures Pavel confessed that for him personally the most severe torture was spiritual when he was not allowed to attend church and meet with a priest. Now within three days Sieviarynets needs to return to the place of his residence in Vitebsk and wait for the transfer to a labour camp. After liberation Pavel immediately went to...

Some time ago,I wrote here about the situation in Belarus concerning the Belarusian Christian Democracy and their attempts to legally register their party. Recently a new constituency congress was organized in order to try to register the party for the third time. However, on the same day that the EU Council of Foreign Ministers will discuss about the "Belarusian issue", from their press center I received the news that it is unlikely that the party will be officially registered this time On October,24 expired the term allocated by the law for making decision on registration of the Belarusian Christian Democracy party, It is worth mentioning that on September 12, 2010 the third Constituent Congress of the BCD was held and on September,19 the Belarusian Christian Democracy party applied for registration to the Ministry of Justice. But with the looming prospect of the meeting of the Council of EU Foreign Ministers to be held today, on the 25th of October in Brussels, during whic...

In the afternoon, a number of interesting questions were discussed and voted on. First there was the question of whether the party should participate in the local elections in 2010. These elections would most probably not be held honestly. Would it not be better just to boycott the elections? Finally people voted for the option to participate in the elections. There should be a signal given to the people that an opposition and therefore alternatives exist. Also the campaigns could be used to spread the messages of the party and to make the party better known in Belarus. Another question was concerning the presidential elections planned for 2011. In these elections, all the opposition parties together form a coalition and name one presidential candidate. This joint candidate is chosen based on the support that this candidate has. Finally people voted that the co-chairman Vital Rymasheuski be nominated as presidential candidate for the BCD in the race for presidential elections for the j...

It was very busy in the hall of the conference centre as people were being registered. The organizers worked very hard throughout the night to finish everything in time and the conference room was decorated well for the congress. At 10:30 a.m. the congress was officially opened with the announcement that despite the fact that people were stopped on their way by the police (here called “militia”), and the presence of police and army at the square, the congress could take place, now 18 years after the independence of Belarus. This was followed with a loud “Long live Belarus”. This slogan was repeated throughout the congress After the opening prayer and practical and statutory matters, important persons gave their greetings. The first greeting, given by Stanislau Shushkievich, was remarkable. He was the one who signed, together with Boris Yeltsin and Leanid Crauchuk, the document for the dismantling of the Soviet Union in 1991. He was also the first prime minister of the independent Belar...

Minsk is a big, clean city, well lit and beautiful, with impressive buildings: a pleasant city to live in. On the other hand you see posters with militaristic, communist symbols on these big buildings. In front of the “parliament” building there is a big statue of Lenin. If you travel further, you will pass a big yellow building: the headquarters of the Belarusian secret service, still called the KGB here.Further, crossing the river you will see a kind of barn. This is the place where Lenin held his first communist congress in 1898. When you walk further, you will arrive at the Victory Square where a monument with an eternal flame to remember the victims of the Second World War when also many people were killed and 80% of the houses were destroyed.If you go further and leave the city, you will find one of the mass graves where hundreds of thousands of people were killed by this same communist regime. Every year, on the second Sunday in November, a procession is held to remember the vic...