Actions in support of democracy in Belarus held in Warsaw

23.09.2005.

On 22 September in Warsaw several actions in support of democracy, human rights and freedom of speech in Belarus occurred. One of them was an attempt to hand a petition over to the Belarusian Embassy, and the other one was a picket in the center of the Polish capital.
None of the Belarusian diplomats left the embassy to meet the special envoy of Warsaw's mayor for women and family affairs Ms Iana Kluzik-Rastkouskaia, and after a while a voice in the phone box advised to leave the petition in the mail box. "I arranged in Warsaw a meeting of the capital residents who had once taken an active part in the uprising and the work of the Solidarity. During this meeting of the Solidarity veterans they signed a petition to the Belarusian authorities that urged them to stop reprisals against their own citizens. Here we have one hundred signatures", said Ms Kluzik-Rastkouskaia.
Warsaw takes quite an active part in the assistance, first of all to the UPB activists – several days before than Hrodna Oblast received gifts from the citizens of the Polish capital, and the Warsaw authorities declared their intention to open the House of Belarus in their capital.
Almost at the same time in the center of Warsaw there was an action entitled Fax the Regime staged by the youth wing of the influential party Law and Justice. About three dozens of its participants handed out to the passers-by pieces of paper with an appeal to stop persecution against the opposition and indepenent media, and fax numbers of the Belarusian officials, and called on the passers-by to send the papers to Belarus. Union Belarusians with the national flags in the hands took part in both actions.