KIEV - Ukraine has appealed to the Belarus supreme court against the continued imprisonment of five Ukrainians who took part in an opposition demonstration in Minsk to mark the anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, the foreign ministry said Thursday.
The appeal was lodged Wednesday by the Ukrainian consul in the Belarussian capital and a lawyer for an unnamed international human rights organisation, the ministry said.
Several dozen Ukrainians erected tents and demonstrated outside the Belarus embassy in Kiev Thursday.
"We demand the release of our people," demonstrator Pavlo Danyltchuk told AFP, "but Belarus doesn't listen to us or to the Ukrainian authorities."
Belarussian ambassador Valentin Velitchko denounced the demonstration on his doorstep, saying it interfered with the normal functioning of his embassy. But the Ukrainian foreign ministry sent the ambassador a note, saying that the demonstrators in no way were blocking access to the embassy.
A Belarussian court on Saturday freed 14 Russians jailed for the same offence but on Tuesday refused to release the Ukrainians, prompting criticism from Ukraine's President Viktor Yushchenko.
A total of 32 people, including 13 Belarussians, were sentenced to prison for between eight and 15 days for participating in the march in Minsk on April 26 marking the 19th anniversary of the explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in Ukraine, the world's worst civilian nuclear disaster.
The protestors waved Belarussian and Russian flags and posters carrying slogans such as "Ukraine today, Belarus tomorrow" and "For our freedom and yours."
About 500 people tried to march on the presidential palace to hand in a petition calling for Belarussian children to be allowed to go abroad for medical treatment.
Yushchenko Wednesday condemned the Minsk judiciary for alleged bias, saying he would raise the matter when he meets Belarus' President Alexander Lukashenko in Moscow next week during ceremonies marking the end of World War II 60 years ago.
He said Kiev had sent three protest notes to the Belarussian authorities, who have ordered the jailed Ukrainians be expelled as soon as they are freed and for four of them to be barred from returning for five years.
The hardline Lukashenko strongly supported Yushchenko's pro-Russian opponent Viktor Yanukovich in last year's Ukrainian political stand-off which led to the "orange revolution" that swept Yushchenko to power.
05/05/2005 18:04 GMT