Opposition activist in Brest applies for permission to demonstrate on anniversary of Dzmitry Zavadski's disappearance

Andrey Sharenda, an activist of Alyaksandr Milinkevich’s Movement for Freedom, applied Wednesday to the Brest City Executive Committee for permission to demonstrate in the city on July 7 in commemoration of the seventh anniversary of the disappearance of journalist Dzmitry Zavadski.

According to Mr. Sharenda, the objective of the demonstration would be to remind the public of this date and demand that the government conduct an effective investigation into this and other high-profile disappearances in Belarus and ratify the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance.

The demonstration is to be staged in front of a drama and music theater in downtown Brest. Up to 20 people are expected to participate.

“This is the second application for permission to stage a demonstration in Brest over the disappearances,” human rights defender Raman Kislyak told BelaPAN. “The authorities banned the first one, which was scheduled for May 7, the ninth anniversary of the disappearance of former Interior Minister Yury Zakharanka. Activists of pro-democratic forces in Brest have appealed the ban to the Leninski District Court.”

Dzmitry Zavadski, once Alyaksandr Lukashenka's personal cameraman, went missing on July 7, 2000. Although the official theory of his disappearance is that Valery Ihnatovich and Maksim Malik, ex-members of Belarus' elite Almaz police unit abducted the journalist in revenge for a newspaper report revealing that some Almaz commandos had fought for the rebels in Chechnya, many believe that the two had received orders to kidnap Zavadski from high-ranking officials of the Security Council of Belarus.

Messrs. Ihnatovich and Malik were sentenced to life in 2002, but they were found guilty of kidnapping, not murdering Dzmitry. The trial yielded no answer to the question as to what happened to him after he had been abducted. Although his body was never found, a district court in Minsk declared him dead in November 2003.

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(source: Naviny Opposition activist in Brest applies for permission to demonstrate on anniversary of Dzmitry Zavadski's disappearance)