Associated Press 24 September 2012 By YURAS KARMANAU MINSK, Belarus (AP) — International vote observers condemned parliamentary elections in Belarus as lacking in competition and said Monday that potential candidates were denied the right to speak, organize and run for office. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said in its assessment of Sunday's election that the vote did not meet international standards. Belarus'

Washington Post 24 September 2012 International observers on Monday condemned a weekend vote in Belarus in which not a single opposition politician won a parliament seat. The election looks set to deepen the former Soviet nation's diplomatic isolation. Critics also said the 74.3 percent turnout reported Monday by the country's Central Elections Commission chairman was way too high and indicated widespread fraud. The main opposition parties,

New York Times 24 September 2012 By Andrew Kramer Supporters of President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko won every seat in Parliament in an election over the weekend that, as many in post-Soviet authoritarian states, was widely seen as rigged, if perhaps a little less so than before. The chairman of the Central Election Commission said the turnout was 74 percent, despite calls for a boycott by two opposition parties. Other opposition figures were

The FINANCIAL 24 September 2012 Many OSCE commitments on citizen's democratic rights to associate, to stand as candidates and to express themselves freely were not respected in yesterday's parliamentary elections in Belarus, concluded the international observers from the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights and the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly. As OSCE reported, the elections were not administered in an impartial manner and

Matteo Mecacci at a polling station in Minsk, 23 September 2012. MINSK, 24 September 2012 – Many OSCE commitments on citizen's democratic rights to associate, to stand as candidates and to express themselves freely were not respected in yesterday's parliamentary elections in Belarus, concluded the international observers from the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) and the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly (OSCE PA). The

WARSAW, 24 September 2012 – Addressing the OSCE Office for Democratic Institution and Human Rights' annual Human Dimension Implementation Meeting (HDIM) today, OSCE Parliamentary Assembly President Riccardo Migliori called for a renewed focus on human rights in the organization. "In 1975," he said, "the Helsinki Process ensured that human rights were forever linked to comprehensive security. We called it the 'third dimension' or 'third basket,'