Organizers file application for Chernobyl March'2008

An application for the Chernobyl March traditional rally was today filed with the Minsk City Hall.  The action is scheduled to take place on April 26. Belapan news agency reports that organizers propose that action participants gather at 1400 near the building of the Academy of Sciences and then walk along the Independence Avenue to the Independence Square in downtown Minsk for speeches would be pronounced.

The participants of the 2008 Chernobyl March are expected to protest against construction of a nuclear power plant in Belarus. The opposition insists that there was no open debate on this issue in the Belarusian society. The participants will also protest against the abolition of social benefits for those who took part in clean-up efforts in Chernobyl after the 1986 accident.

The application was signed by eight people: Alexander Milinkevich, the leader of the For Freedom movement, Aleh Novikau from the Green Party, Ihar Rynkevich, a deputy chairman of the Belarusian Social Democratic Party (Hramada), Alexander Volchanin, the chairman of the Ukraine-based Union Chernobyl-Belarus society, Yury Melyashkevich, the chairman of the environment and Chernobyl commission at the Party of the Belarusian Popular Front, human rights lawyer Uladzimir Labkovich, Mikhail Pashkevich, one of the leaders of the Young Democrats youth pressure group, and Aleh Shapavalau from the Belarusian Party of Communists.