LYMEC mission in Ukraine and Belarus

LYMEC has condemned the decision of the Belarussian regime to expell a LYMEC member from Venstres Ungdom (Denmark) on Wednesday and to deny entry to half of its election team. Our 15 strong team had been due to conduct exit-polling and the decision can only indicate that the Lukashenko regime wants to avoid international scrutiny and supress democratic opposition. Recent days have seen as series of arrests, expulsions and a pattern of intimidation.

We will however continue our protest against the unfair electoral process and in support of the Opposition Bloc. LYMEC and Moloda PORA (youth of PORA party, which had been at the avant garde of the Orange Revolution), are organising a public action over this week-end in Kiev:

• on Friday 17 march, hundreds of lights will be lit in windows as a symbol of our awareness of the political situation in Belarus
• on Saturday 18 march, activists will break a symbolic door in front of the Belarussian embassy in Kiev, as a symbol of our wish to open Belarus borders to the world
• and on Sunday 19 march (election day), activists will wash the Belarussian embassy building as a symbol of our commitment to fight corruption and to clean the regime of dictatorship

The contact building mission is doing extremely well. Moloda PORA, which participated in LYMEC seminar in Kiev on 14-17 March, will apply for LYMEC membership later this year and the cooperation is already very good, as it can be seen from this joint action (see joint press release)! They claim about 5,000 members throughout Ukraine and are extremely well organised.

The banner above was prepared by Pietro, Jeroen, Gerald and me, yesterday at Moloda PORA Office in Kiev, for the joint action of this week-end.

A few LYMEC activists who managed to get visas for Belarus will try to enter the country this evening. More news will follow.