Human rights defender Pavel Levinau has addressed the Central Election Commission with a complaint against polling station election commission No. 52.

Swedish journalists were denied Belarusian visas after arriving at Minsk-2 international airport last evening.

The legal basis for this year’s election campaigning was the amended version of the Electoral Code, which extended campaigning opportunities as compared to the parliamentary elections in 2008; however, the use of the new standards was curtailed by the executive authorities, resulting in a large number of candidates from the opposition parties being unable to transmit their position to the voters.

“A mark in any box of a sample ballot paper has no legal significance,” says the Central Election Commission in its reply to a complaint by Maladechna observer Ales Kaputski.

Brest police detained last evening three activists of Brest-based pro-democratic coalition “Spadchyna” (“Heritage”), as they were distributing leaflets calling for a boycott of the elections.

Aliaksei Mikulich, activist of the Tell the Truth civil campaign, was detained this afternoon, while distributing leaflets calling for a boycott of the lections in Minsk, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reports.

Yury Darashenka, observer representing the United Civil Party in Mahiliou, has been deprived of accreditation by head of polling station election commission No. 70 Vera Tsyrkunova.

Extremely high voters’ turnout has been reported by independent observers at the polling stations of Brest and Baranavichy. Most of the voters are students of local education institutions, Brest State Technical University and Baranavichy State University, say the observers.

Two more observers representing the Fair World party have been expelled from the polling stations in Svetlahorsk district.

The independent observers of two Salihorsk constituencies addressed local polling stations election commissions with a proposal to make the vote count procedures transparent for all the election commissioners and the observers present.

Mrs. Larysa Kolbik, deputy head of Ivatsevichy police department, reportedly ordered her employees to go to the polls on the first day of the early voting campaign, says observer Stanislau Khaladovich, registered in constituency No. 11.

Nina Shubina, head of Vitsebsk-based constituency election commission No. 52, has not allowed observers having their working place in the room occupied by the polling station. The observers were forced to occupy a table in the adjoining room, instead.

Two independent observers – Andrei Tsianiuta and Andrei Zhaleznichenka – were forced today to leave Homel-based polling station No. 3 located in constituency No. 33.

Six observers representing the Fair World party have been deprived of accreditation at a number of polling stations of Svetlahorsk district.

The Belarusian Embassy to Ukraine has not authorized the registration of independent observer Hanna Darashchuk, representative of the Belarusian Helsinki Committee.