The international human rights organizations – the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) – addressed the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention with a plea to consider the case of arbitrarily incarcerated professor Bandazhevsky. Following read the full transcript:

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The Supreme Court of Belarus declined explanations concerning the fairness of the judges, who ruled to detain before the second court hearing the April 19 Protest March participants, who submitted petitions to be given lawyers.

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The delegation of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, which was on an official visit to Minsk on June 10, met yesterday with the relatives of the missing Belarusian opposition members – Irina Krasovskaya, Zinaida Gonchar and Svetlana Zavadskaya. The females handed in to the European parliamentarians a letter for the PACE president with a request to set up a special investigation commission on disappearances. Same day the delegates met with the representatives of the Belarusian NGOs, sociologists and leaders of opposition parties.

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“I didn’t mean the isolation of Belarus, but rather of the Belarusian leadership,”– said in an interview to the Belarusian radio “Polognia” the Minister of foreign affairs of Poland Vladimezh Timoshevich, commenting on his own interview, given to the Belarusian television a few months ago. “In an interview I mentioned positive and negative features, spoke about openness and readiness for cooperation and openly shared my criticism of the political situation. This interview of mine went under harsh political censorship. They twisted my words in order to distort them and manipulate my opinion for their good. So when the BT asked me to give another interview to them I told them that I would not do that unless they apologize before the TV viewers for such political censorship.”

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Population’s incomes over the first quarter went 20-30% up, while the GDP (all that we produced) – 4%. Needless to say that the Ministry of statistics takes into account the accrued rather than paid wages, which are two big differences in our country. Director of the national association “Alternative-21” Leonid Zlotnikov explains why Belarus has more money but lives worse.

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The Minister of culture and Islamic orientation of the Islamic Republic of Iran Ahmad Masdjed-Djamei will come on an official visit to Minsk on June 12-14. The Belarusian Foreign Ministry’s press-service reports that the visit is an important step towards an official trip to Belarus by the Iranian president Mohammed Khatami.

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The Belarusian Minister of energy Vladimir Semashko and the secretary of the committee of the General company for energy of Libya Umran Ibragim Abukraa signed a protocol, defining the steps on the development of joint, mutually beneficial cooperation, “RIA “Novosti” quotes the press-center of the Belarusian state energy concern as saying. The officials added that the Libyan energy companies also proposed to the Belarusian specialists to engage in a tender for the construction of 250km long energy line (400kw) between the towns of Ruesi and Uadi Al-Rabi.

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“Itera” company stated its intention to curtail the natural gas supplies into Belarus. The snag is, despite the reached agreements, the “Beltransgas” enterprise doesn’t clear off the current bills for the supplied natural gas and comes short of paying off last year’s debts schedule. By June 10 the indebtedness exceeded $24mln. In this regard the directorate of the “Itera” holding passed at 10a.m. June 13 a decision to cut down by two times the supplies of gas to the Belarusian “Beltransgas”.

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