NVA in Europe - 2009 April 17

Saturday, 18 April 2009

Ukraine's Orange Revolution fades into disillusion
By: Natalia Feduschak, The Washington Times, April 16, 2009
Volodymyr Mushak voted for Viktor Yushchenko in Ukraine's highly contested presidential race in 2004. He is not sure he would do so again. "I don't see the result of his work," said Mr. Mushak, who teaches business and economics at a local institute in this historic town in western Ukraine. "As for parliament, they made Ukraine into mud."
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UK: People power beats land developers
By: Nicki Robinson, Thisistamworth.co.uk, April 16, 2009
People power has forced developers to re-think plans for more than 240 homes on greenbelt land on the outskirts of Dosthill. The applicants withdrew the proposals at the eleventh hour - just moments before town planners met to consider them. "I am over the moon," said protestor and Dosthill resident Peter Nicholls. "They obviously didn't know what they were up against." Dozen of campaigners turned out to this month's borough council planning meeting, poised to speak out against the plans, only to be turned away by council staff when the developers back-tracked on the application.
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Russia ends operations in Chechnya
By: Michael Schwirtz, NY Times, April 16, 2009
Russia officially ended what it called its counterterrorism operation in the southern region of Chechnya on Thursday with an announcement that carried symbolic weight as marking the end of a decade of Muslim separatist battles for independence. The announcement also underscored the success of Chechnya's strongman president, Ramzan A. Kadyrov, in establishing a fragile stability that has, among other things, allowed rebuilding to begin in the obliterated capital city of Grozny. But critics charge that the peace has been achieved through campaigns of unsparing brutality that have included widespread human rights violations.
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Russia: Medvedev grants interview to anti-Kremlin newspaper
By: Sarah Schafer, Washington Post, APril 16, 2009
Stepping up efforts to portray himself as a liberal reformer, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev granted an interview to a newspaper that has been fiercely critical of the Kremlin and called Wednesday for changes to laws that have hindered the work of human rights groups and other activist organizations. Speaking to a recently revived presidential council for promoting civil society and human rights, Medvedev chastised officials for seeing such groups as "a threat to their single-handed rule" and imposing restrictions on them "without any sufficient reason."
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Young Belarusians reminded EU about political prisoners and missing people
By: Charter 97, April 16, 2009
A rally of solidarity with political prisoners and families of the disappeared Belarusian politicians was held in the center of Minsk on March 16. More than 100 activists of the civil campaign "European Belarus", "Young Belarus", and "Young Front" came to October square on the Day of Belarusian Solidarity at 8.00 p.m. young oppositionists were holding portraits of political prisoners.
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Albania opposition boycott over ID row
By: BalkanInsight.com, April 16, 2009
Albania's leftist opposition boycotted parliament on Thursday accusing the government of stalling the distribution of new identification cards, a key requirement ahead of the June 28 general elections.
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Belarussian human rights activist Leanid Svetsik presented accusation
By: Charter 97, April 15, 2009
A human rights activist from Vitsebsk is accused of "stirring up national hatred" and libel against Alyaksandr Lukashenka. An investigator of the KGB department for the Vitsebsk region presented an accusation to the human rights activist for the second time. "The investigator asked only one question whether I admitted my fault fully or partially or I pleaded not guilty. I answered I pleaded not guilty. I will learn the materials of the case tomorrow. For the second time," Leanid Svetsik says.
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Russia goes after election monitors
By: CSM, April 15, 2009
The gold standard in international monitoring of elections is in danger of losing its value. The latest warning sign comes from the tiny country of Moldova, once part of the Soviet empire and now the poorest country in Europe. For several years, Russia has tried to weaken the world's champion of democratic elections, the 56-nation Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). This is the body, set up during a warming period of the cold war, that has impartially judged so many elections in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union - and whose judgments Russia blames for sparking democratic "color revolutions" on its doorstep.
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Moldova: Starting a revolution or an exercise in futility?
By: Fletcher Reflections, April 15, 2009
As many of my friends will tell you, I have recently become keenly focused on Moldova. It is currently facing a pivotal time in its history, teetering on the verge of an economic and political disaster. Recent elections have been undermined by fraud, corruption, and intimidation resulting in the reinstatement of the incumbent Communist party. To protest elections, peaceful demonstration in the country's capital were organized through informal networks and the internet by students and youth. However, the government responded using violence, further media censorship, imprisonment of demonstrators without access to legal representation, and human rights abuses as reported by the UN.
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Moldovan episode signals 'end of color revolutions'?
By: Michael Allen, Democracy Digest, April 14, 2009
Several Moldovan human rights groups, including World Movement for Democracy participant Promo-LEX, have issued a statement expressing concern about the methods and conditions of detention of persons suspected to have participated in the protests in Chisinau on April 6-7. The organizations insist that police and security authorities disregarded the need to protect freedom of assembly.
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Georgia: Concerns emerge over opposition protests
By: Onnik Krikorian, Gloval Voices, April 14, 2009
As the opposition blocks off main roads in Tbilisi, some bloggers and other online commentators are starting to question the tactics employed by protesters in the Georgian capital. Nevertheless, most are thankful that the protests have not resulted in major clashes. The New Atlanticist blog, for example, is especially grateful, and not least because the start of the demonstrations calling for Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili's resignation marked the 20th anniversary of one of the darkest days in the country's recent history.
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Moldova: Time to take sides
By: Vessela Tcherneva, Open Democracy, April 9, 2009
In the days following the declaration of the results of the parliamentary election, people were marching on the streets - but also wandering around them, devastated. The reformed communists had taken the majority of the votes in a contest recognised by the international community as largely free and fair. No, this is not Moldova after the vote on 5 April 2009. The episode is from the early days of Bulgaria's newly re-won democracy in 1990.
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