Solidarity Day starts with action in memory of missing people in Minsk (Photo)

• 16.11.2010, 10:46

Activists of European Belarus civil campaign gathered on Victory Square in Minsk with portraits of Yury Zakharanka, Viktar Hanchar, Anatol Kraspouski and Zmitsaer Zavadski.

The action held in the pedestrian subway on Victory Square e4arly in the morning drew attention of Minsk residents hurrying to work.

The Day of Belarusian Solidarity with the repressed and disappeared opponents of Lukashenka’s regime is marked every 16th day of a month.

On November 16, participants of actions plan to remind about prisoners of conscience in Belarus, not investigating cases of kidnapped and killed opposition leaders and journalists.

Founder and director of charter97.org website Aleh Byabenin was found hanging in his summer house near Minsk on September 3. The law-enforcement bodies hurried to reports it was a suicide. The death of Aleh Byabenin raises many questions. Forensic scientists cannot define the exact time of his death. Aleh Byabenin didn’t leave a suicide note .Friends and relatives of the journalist claim there were traces of violence on his body. Aleh Byabenin was a key figure in the team of opposition presidential candidate Andrei Sannikov.

Businessman from Vaukavysk Mikalai Autukhovich arrested in February 2009 is still in prison.

The cases over disappearance of opposition leaders Viktar Hanchar, Yury Zakharanka, Anatol Krasouski, and journalist Zmitser Zavadski in 1999–2000 are not investigated in Belarus. The international community suspects that high ranking Belarusian officials close to Alyaksandr Lukashenka are involved in these crimes.

Harassment of dissidents – independent journalists, opposition activists, and civil society members – still goes on.