Belarus post-election follow-up

First of all, thank you very much to everyone who sent contacts, information, and reached out to the ICRC on their own.

I was able to get the word out to the UN and the ICRC. They said they would look into the matter but cannot guarantee anything. And I'm starting to get a feeling nothing will be done until after Christmas.

I also spoke to staffers on the US Senate foreign policy committee - right now they can only monitor the situation because the Congress is going on recess by evening of December 23 and will return only on January 3 and it will be already 112th Congress. So the only hope is on US Department of State and we are working that angle.

The word in the street (http://www.facebook.com/l/ea831lw5wN__N1ANN1Q-DZjd3fw;euobserver.com/9/31558) is that EU's foreign policy office is not going to do much with regards to Belarus. If you are a citizen of an EU country, try to contact your EU Parliament representative & the foreign policy commission.

Andrei Sannikov's lawyer met with him on December 22 and said that his condition was bad. Sannikov had many bruises and some leg injury but had not been taken to a doctor.

Anatoly Lebedko & Nikolai Statkevich are on a hunger strike (word from lawyers). Lebedko is drinking sweet tea. Statkevich's relatives tried to send him drinking water but the KGB refused it.

No word about Vladimir Niekliayev's condition. The KGB refused to arrange a meeting between him & his lawyer justifying the decision with the lack of meeting space.

The police is yet to provide the locations of all detainees. There are rumors that because of the overcrowded prisons some where taken to Hrodna (Grodno), which is ~200km West of Minsk, and to Homiel (Gomel), which is ~300km South-East of Minsk.

Minister of Internal Affairs announced on Wednesday that the police was identifying all persons present at the protest and would be taking action against all of them. They are using photo & video materials as well as call logs from mobile providers. Human rights defenders are expecting the total number of the repressed to be close to 3,000 people (the official count of participants).

There are also reports of universities expelling students who are currently in detention. Fortunately, the government of Poland already expressed willingness to accept them in Polish universities for continued education.

Finally, there is at least one PayPal account setup for those abroad wishing to send money for supplies & fines. If you are interested, let me know and I'll find out more details.