BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

05.08.2005

Polish journalists protest outside Belarusian Embassy

By TBT staff

VILNIUS - Polish media journalists in Lithuania are planning a protest against the persecution of their national colleagues in Belarus.

The protest is planned to take place outside the Belarusian Embassy in Vilnius on Friday, organizers say. Belarusian diplomats will also be handed an address on the matter.

In a written document, Polish media representatives expressed indignation over the Grodno court conviction of Glos Znad Niemna newspaper Chief Editor Andrzej Pisalnik, representing the Belarusian Polish Society.

The address described Pisalnik as a "journalist who has been fighting for the freedom of press in Belarus for many years."

Representatives of the Polish media expressed their solidarity with the newspaper, which has lately been under pressure from the Belarusian administration, as well as the Polish population in Belarus.

Relations between Belarus and Poland began to collapse after Minsk declared it would not recognize the board of the new Association of Poles in Belarus that was elected in March 2005, and accused Warsaw of trying to destabilize the situation using its staff and the Polish ethnic minority.

Source:

http://www.baltictimes.com/hot1.php?art_id=13200

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