BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

04.08.2005

Crackdown on ethnic Poles continues in Belarus

Another member of the Union of Poles in Belarus has been thrown to jail. Andrzej Pisalnik, the organization's informal spokesman and a journalist of a Polish newspaper, was sentenced to 10 days behind bars for participation in an illegal action and failing to observed police orders.

The illegal action, according to the court in the Belarus city of Lida, was a concert organized by the Union of Poles to mark the independence day of Belarus on July 3rd. The authorities banned it under the pretext that it is an illegal demonstration.

The democratically elected leader of the Union of Poles in Belarus Angelica Borys is to report to prosecutors in Grodno at about this time. She was accused of fraud in a harassment campaign directed against the union leaders. She is the organization's only official who has not been jailed so far.

Tyres have been punctured in a car of a Polish TV team heading for the trial of the Polish ethnic union's spokesman in Belarus. The incident happened at a guarded parking lot in Grodno, on the Polish border.

Source:

http://www.radio.com.pl/polonia/article.asp?tId=25827&j=2