BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

11/10/2007

Belarus government allows EU protest march but shifts location

Minsk - Belarus' authoritarian government has changed the location of a sanctioned, EU-sponsored protest march, setting the stage for violent confrontation with opposition forces, the Belapan news agency reported Thursday. Organizers of the October 14 event had requested Minsk authorities to permit the demonstration to begin in the city's central October Square, and end next to the national library.

The route would have taken marchers past most Belarusian government buildings - which rarely see any form of demonstration, as most public protest is banned.

Officials from the European Union played a key role in convincing authoritarian Belarusian President Aleksander Lukashenko to allow the march, whose focus is an alleged common heritage of values between European Union nations, and the KGB-ruled former Soviet republic.

Minsk authorities citing public safety and possible problems with the movement automobile traffic ordered the demonstration to be held on the fringes of Minsk, a tactic used in the past by authorities to give police a pretext to arrest any one resembling a protestor in the centre of the city.

Practically every youth and opposition organization set to participate in the march - among them the anti-Lukahsneko Young Democrat and Third Way groups - hit out at the decision, in a Thursday joint statement saying "it proves the cowardice ... and the government's betrayal of the people."

Demonstrators will defy the government order and meet and march in the centre of the city, the statement said.

Conflicts between opposition groups and the Minsk city government over where a demonstration may take place have traditionally set the stage for marches in the city centre broken up by police using force.

Aleksander Milinkevich, Belarus' leading opposition politician, criticised the state decision to exile the Sunday march to the suburbs, called for the demonstrators and authorities to allow the protest to proceed peacefully.

Source:

http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/122686.html

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