Last March was very "Ukrainian" for the whole region of Eastern Europe. For the first time in the Crimean issue, Belarus and Belarusian president has come into the spotlight, besides the Ukraine and Russia.
Every young male citizen of Belarus aged from 18 to 27 faces the duty of military service.
The length of service has been reduced compared with the Soviet period, but it is still higher than, for example, in Russia. A citizen without a higher education is obliged to serve for one and a half year, with higher education – for a year.
At the same time, in the last twenty years the conscripts have not been able to choose civil alternative service instead of military service, despite the fact that it is their constitutional right.
Nearly 4000 young people were to storm the Government House in Minsk in the early hours on February 3rd. A blocked Independence Avenue, Special Forces of the Ministry of Interior Affairs, real fights on the steps of the Government House. And even a real car explosion near the monument to Lenin.
The Constitutional Court of Belarus sees no problem in the lack of translations into the Belarusian language of the laws of the Republic of Belarus. Presidential administration suggests using automatic translators on the official sites. And the Council of the Republic (the upper house of parliament) believes that the right to choose one of the two official languages belongs to the state, and not to the citizens.
On December 6th, police officers stopped a bus on the highway near Minsk. All 53 passengers of the bus were heading to Kiev for Maidan. Due to, in Belarus already well-known reasons (or rather, a comlete lack of them), the bus was held up, the driver lost his license, and the passengers were asked to go to the nearest police department. Passengers decided to get to Kiev in their own ways - through the night snow-covered field, by minibuses and with the help of their friends, who gave them a lift. Some of them had to return to Minsk. But some still reached Kiev.
The priest of the Roman Catholic Church Vladislav Lazar has been in custody in the KGB prison for the last 6 months on charges of complicity in treason. On December 3, 2013 the Nunciature of the Roman Catholic Church announced the release of the priest. According to the announcement, the priest is obliged to report weekly to the police in the place of his residence. However, there is no information on the procedural status of the priest.
The essence of the "case".
The name of the priest Vladislav Lazar until July of this year was not known any further than Minsk-Mogilev Archidiocese of the Catholic Church, where he served as a rector of the church in Borisov. On July 26, 2013, Alexander Lukashenko, announced the arrest of a KGB officer, who had been working for other states and had transmitted information through the representatives of the Belarusian Catholic Church. It was after this reference that the journalists began requesting more information from the representatives of the Catholic Church in order to specify who that person was.
Finally, on July 29, a representative of the Conference of Catholic Bishops in Belarus, Yury Sanko, confirmed the arrest of the priest Lazar. As it became known later, already at that time the priest had been detained for about two months.
Last March was very "Ukrainian" for the whole region of Eastern Europe. For the first time in the Crimean issue, Belarus and Belarusian president has come into the spotlight, besides the Ukraine and Russia.
Every young male citizen of Belarus aged from 18 to 27 faces the duty of military service.
Nearly 4000 young people were to storm the Government House in Minsk in the early hours on February 3rd. A blocked Independence Avenue, Special Forces of the Ministry of Interior Affairs, real fights on the steps of the Government House. And even a real car explosion near the monument to Lenin.
The Constitutional Court of Belarus sees no problem in the lack of translations into the Belarusian language of the laws of the Republic of Belarus. Presidential administration suggests using automatic translators on the official sites. And the Council of the Republic (the upper house of parliament) believes that the right to choose one of the two official languages belongs to the state, and not to the citizens.
On December 6th, police officers stopped a bus on the highway near Minsk. All 53 passengers of the bus were heading to Kiev for Maidan. Due to, in Belarus already well-known reasons (or rather, a comlete lack of them), the bus was held up, the driver lost his license, and the passengers were asked to go to the nearest police department. Passengers decided to get to Kiev in their own ways - through the night snow-covered field, by minibuses and with the help of their friends, who gave them a lift. Some of them had to return to Minsk. But some still reached Kiev.
The priest of the Roman Catholic Church Vladislav Lazar has been in custody in the KGB prison for the last 6 months on charges of complicity in treason. On December 3, 2013 the Nunciature of the Roman Catholic Church announced the release of the priest. According to the announcement, the priest is obliged to report weekly to the police in the place of his residence. However, there is no information on the procedural status of the priest.
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