Andrei Khrapavitski: Belarusian American Blog

Yesterday Maskouski District Court of Brest ruled that a double issue ##7-8, 2008 of a Belarusian intellectual journal ARCHE contained extremist materials and thus was subject to confiscation and destruction. Just a week back, I visited a presentation of Aleh Latyszonak’s book “The Soldiers of the Belarusian People’s Republic “where I bought this yet-untabooed issue. Who would’ve thought, now I am a proud owner of an extremist magazine… So let me walk you through the stuff that the Belarusian court found extreme and inappropriate for the Belarusian readers to see.

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Yesterday Malady Front (Young Front) conducted its annual St. Valentine’s Day peaceful rally. The action was brutally dispersed by the Belarusian OMON (special task force). Seems like they do not feed into the idea of liberalization too much. Young opposition activists were battered and forced out of Yakub Kolas Square. Arrests were not made. However, some guys including Young Front leader Zmicier Dashkevich suffered serious beating. See the video by nn.by below.

Of all the lapses and fallacies of the soviet-styled Belarusian system, one of the most disgusting is the mandatory military service. All Belarusian men are obliged to serve in the army unless they have some good reasons not to do so. One such reason exempting from the military service is poor health. Each conscript has to go through a series of medical checks before he or she is approved to be a soldier. Well, it is so, of course, unless you are an opposition activist and the authorities want you blocked away from your “socially harmful” activities. (more…)