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Some 100 people attend rally organized by former lawmakers Skrabets, Fralow on occasion of Belarusian-Russian Unity Day

Some 100 people attended a rally held in Minsk on April 2 on the occasion of the Belarusian-Russian Unity Day.

Organized by two former lawmakers Syarhey Skrabets and Valery Fralow and authorized by the city government, the rally took place in Peoples' Friendship Park on the outskirts of Minsk.

Police ordered participants to remove signs saying, “Freedom to Kazulin!” and “Russia, Give Us a Rest from Lukashenka!” explaining that they were inconsistent with the declared theme of the rally.

Mr. Skrabets, who was an outspoken critic of Alyaksandr Lukashenka's policies while being a member of the House of Representatives between 2000 and 2004, said in his speech that the Belarusian leadership should immediately apologize to Russia for government-controlled media outlets’ insulting statements in which the Gazprom managers were called fat cats and Vladimir Putin was labeled a gas terrorist.

“Unfortunately, the Belarusian foreign ministry believes that the higher fence there is between our countries, the better friendship will be,” said Mr. Skrabets. “That’s why, our relations with Russia are no very good at present, but the Belarusian people are strong for friendly relations with our eastern neighbor.”

Mr. Skrabets, who spent 18 months in prison in 2005-06 on charges widely believed to be politically motivated, urged the Belarusian authorities to release Alyaksandr Kazulin, Andrey Kim, Syarhey Parsyukevich and “all other prisoners of conscience.”

Mr. Fralow, a retired army general who led the dissident Respublika parliamentary group together with Mr. Skrabets, noted in his address that Belarus acquired independence in 1991 thanks to Russia. “Since an agreement on the formation of the Belarusian-Russian Community was signed on April 2, 1996, we’ve been trying to restore good-neighborly relations,” he said. “It’s thanks to friendship with Russia that Belarus is becoming a prosperous, high-tech and modern state.”

The rally culminated in a rock concert. Although the organizer had invited “all rock musicians who value the ideals of freedom and democracy” to take part, only one band, called Mutnaye Voka, gave a performance, playing their own songs and rock’n’roll classics for about 40 minutes.

Attending the rally were Alena Skryhan, a leader of the opposition Belarusian Party of Communists; Uladzimir Nistsyuk of the Belarusian Social Democratic Party "Hramada," and Dr. Kazulin’s daughter Volha.

Mr. Skrabets described the event as not very successful. According to him, he had expected more people to turn out. “As a matter of fact, the rally was to display support for the political prisoners rather than to observe the Unity Day,” he said. “Unfortunately, not only common people but also some opposition leaders don’t care about the political prisoners.”

The organizers had originally planned to stage a march to the park from the square in front of the National Academy of Sciences, but the Minsk City Executive Committee had banned the march.