Applicants of the People’s March “For Better Life!” Ludmila Gryaznova and Vladimir Kobets met today with representatives of the Minsk police. At the meeting there was also present deputy Interior Minister Alexander Schurko. As a result of the negotiations, the law-enforcers allowed the People’s March protesters to assemble tomorrow, on March 12 at 6p.m. in the Yakub Kolas square. The further route of the movement will be defined on the spot.

---

The Brest regional affiliate of the public organization “Human rights center “Vesna” addressed the Brest town’s electoral commission with an open letter, in which they point out systematic violations of law by some candidates for the deputies. At the same time, BelaPAN was told by the head of the department Vladimir Velichkin, he passed over to the commission “a whole set of flyers without exit data from candidate Ludmila Orlova”.

---

Candidate for the deputy from the Brest region committee, professor of the Brest State University and head of the local Belarusian Social-Democratic Party (Narodnaya Gromada) Anatoly Levkovich called a range of media publications ahead of the second round of voting “an open violation of electoral law”.

---

A few days ago the city hall of Paris for the first time ruled to endow a Belarusian national with an “honorary citizen of Paris” title – the former rector of the Gomel State Institute of medicine professor Yuri Bandazhevsky, who’s currently serving his term in the hard labor colony #1 in Belarus.

---

Saparmurat Niyazov and Alexander Lukashenko were included into top ten world’s most dangerous dictators of the modern day. The rating was published by the journal Parade. The candidates were selected on the basis of rapports of the influential international human rights watchdogs, such as the Freedom House, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

---

Following his comeback to Grodno from the open-type penitentiary institution in Osipovichi (Mogilev region) the convicted journalist Nikolai Markevich was employed as an expeditor. Editor of the closed newspaper “Pagonya” now works in the firm “Verasen” and will deal with the expedition of cargo in Belarus. This kind of job will enable him, says Markevich, to “dedicate myself to the full to the journalism and public activities”.

---

The Striking Committee of entrepreneurs forwarded to the government and Alexander Lukashenko a notification about the forthcoming March 12 strike. The entrepreneurs also claim that they intend to join the march “For Better Life!”, scheduled for March 12.

---

Around 40 Belarusians, who used to be working in Iraq under contract terms, flew on Monday from Baghdad to Minsk. “Belavia” aircraft was freighted by the association of the Belarusian-Iraqi friendship. The UN committee for sanctions gave green light to the flight.

---

Staff reshuffles occurred in the Belarusian Foreign Ministry, where they appointed Andrei Savinyh (former deputy head of the FM information department) the FM’s press-secretary, BELTA correspondent was told in the press-service of the Belarusian Foreign Ministry.

---

Another session of the joint Russian-Belarusian commission on preparing the Constitutional act of the “union state” will take place in Minsk on March 11. For this purpose the country will be visited by the Russian State Duma Speaker, communist Gennady Seleznev, who is a co-chairman of the joint commission.

---

Human rights violations chronicles for February 2003

Humiliation of human dignity and nation’s misery are two sides of one dictatorial medal. The current Belarusian “order of things” is no exception, and can be equally paralleled to the Marcos’ case in the Philippines or Sukharto’s in Indonesia. Time hasn’t yet come to publicize the shadow accumulation of riches, belonging to the family of Lukashenko. For now, we can only point out the visible side of the “order” – humiliation of human dignity and human rights violations. Unfortunately, we can only do that in Internet.

---