The “Belarusian Association of Journalists” public union requests to bring to responsibility persons, who are guilty in breaking professional rights of the journalist Mr. Valery Shchukin during elections to Local Councils.

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The secretary general of Germany`s ruling Christian Democratic Union (CDU) was expected to arrive in Minsk on Tuesday on his third visit to Belarus within a year.

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Youth activists planned to hold actions in Salihorsk, Slutsak, Luban, and Starobin. They also planned to visit the parents of their imprisoned friend and colleague in Staryia Darohi.

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On January 20 Belarusian Youth Movement of America held a picket in support of Belarusian political prisoners in New York. Several dozen representatives from New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts took part in the action.

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Young Front activist Znitser Karnou was detained on Saturday, January 20 on the central square of Salihorsk. Together with Ivan Shyla he held a banner “Freedom to Dashkevich!” The police also detained Ivan and Ilya Shyla and Andrus Tychyna. Besides that, the police officers searched the local office of Young Front and seized all the handout materials.

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On January 21 the law “About Counteracting Extremism” came into force. It’s worth mentioning that the parliament considered the draft law twice. In the beginning the draft law was passed by the Chamber of Representatives on October 11, 2006. However, the Council of the Republic turned the draft law down on October 20. The ground was that the law authors failed to define the criteria, according to which an organization might be considered “extremist”. Member of the Council of the Republic Charhinets also indicated some flaws in the bill.

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The government of Belarus is now investigating the matter of possible oil deliveries to the Belarusian refineries from the Baltic ports over the Ventspils- Navapolatsk pipeline, first deputy prime minister Uladzimir Semashka reported to Alyaksandr Lukashenka during the head of the state’s visiting the “Druzhba” unitary enterprise in Navapolatsk. The report of the first deputy prime minister was commented to the press-center of the Charter’97 by a well-known economist, head of the Mizes Center, Yaraslau Ramanchuk.

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The chief household- management department of the administrative service of the president of Belarus gave several days to the Belarusian Helsinki Committee for vacating their office at 68 Minsk, Libknehta street. “The chief household - management department has informed us that we are given the time for relocation until this weekend. We, in our turn, have applied to the chief household- management department for concluding another contract for renting the same premises and are considering other opportunities for regular Committee’s functioning but the chief household- management department doesn’t provide any other premises for us. It is hard to guess, how we shall find another office because under present conditions it is next to impossible for the human-rights organization to find the shelter in Belarus. In case we fail, we shall be forced to work at home, but then we shall face the registration deprivation because of the absence of any domicile,” reported Aleg Gulak, deputy chairman of the Helsinki Committee, to the press-center of the Charter’97.

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Yesterday Syargei Barisiuk, official of the State Customs Committee of the Republic of Belarus, declared that the country had enforced the custom’s monitoring of goods transit to and from Kaliningrad. According to him, facilitation of the custom’s procedure was directed at preventing illegal deliveries of certain foreign goods to the country under the guise of the goods of the Russian origin. Meanwhile, as the Novie Izvestia says, the Russian Duma is waiting for new sanctions from Belarus.

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