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Office of opposition news site charter97.org opened in Warsaw

The office of the popular Belarusian opposition news site charter97.org was opened in Warsaw on September 14.

Attending of the opening ceremony were Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Jerzy Pomianowski; former Slovak Foreign Minister Pavol Demes; Janez Lenarcic, director of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights; Leszek Szerepka, the Polish ambassador to Belarus; Mariusz Maszkiewicz and Witold Jurasz, former heads of the Polish diplomatic mission to Belarus; European Parliament member Marek Migalski; Marcin Wojciechowski, vice president of the Polish International Solidarity Fund; Andrew Michta, director of the Warsaw office of the German Marshall Fund; Tomasz Pisula, chairman of the Freedom and Democracy Foundation in Warsaw; representatives of the embassies of the United States, Slovakia, Belgium, Norway, Canada, Japan, Austria, Ireland, the Czech Republic, Finland, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Estonia and Egypt; prominent Belarusian opposition figures, including Ales Mikhalevich, Dzmitry Bandarenka, Viktar Ivashkevich, Uladzimir Kobets and Mikalay Khalezin; Yawhen Vapa, director general of Radio Racyja; and Dzmitry Novikaw, director general of European Radio for Belarus.

“The office was opened thanks to the invitation and support of Polish authorities,” Natallya Radzina, editor in chief of charter97.org, told BelaPAN. “Warsaw and Vilnius are now major bases of Belarusian opposition forces and therefore it is important for us to be present in both Warsaw and Vilnius. That is why we retain a bureau in Vilnius. We also plan to open bureaus in Brussels and other capital cities in the long run, but most importantly, we are set to return to Minsk and convinced that this will happen sooner or later.” //BelaPAN