Two main opposition parties in Belarus are calling for a boycott of upcoming parliamentary elections on September 23, denouncing the vote as a farce and urging people to "go fishing or visit your parents" instead.

Tens of thousands of Russians have taken part in a demonstration in the Russian capital to demand social and political reforms -- and to keep the pressure on President Vladimir Putin. Rallies also took place in other major Russian cities.

A concert was held in St Petersburg on Sunday evening in support of Taisa Osipova, wife of a political activist recently sentenced to 8 years, the imprisoned members of Pussy Riot and those detained after the demonstration in March on Bolotnaya Square

Activists of the opposition Tell The Truth civic movement in Belarus say their colleague, Paval Vinahradau, has been detained.

Reporters Without Borders says that the judicial harassment of journalists and Internet users critical of the government has just one aim – to keep them under pressure and make them feel permanently threatened

As a result of the storming of the school in Beslan, in which the Russian federal authorities used tanks and hard artillery, 331 people died, including 170 children

British Home Secretary Theresa May has sent a list of 60 Russian citizens barred from entering Great Britain in connection with the Magnitsky case, London’s Sunday Times has reported.

The training, which included introducing Belarusian police to German riot control techniques, has particularly stirred controversy because it went on despite the Minsk police brutally charging protesters the day after President Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s December 2010 reelection

Charter 97 reports the arrests of moderators of social network opposition groups. It says that the Belarusian KGB has also hacked into the largest Internet communities in the network Vkontakte “We’re sick of that Lukashenko”

Zmitser Dashkevich, a prisoner of conscience in Belarus, is facing another year in prison for allegedly violating prison rules. He has spent almost his entire sentence in punishment cells (Please take part in Urgent Action appeals)

A Russian opposition activist has been jailed for possession of heroin for eight years - double the sentence requested by the prosecution. Supporters of Taisiya Osipova, 28, say her trial was politically motivated.

Der Tagesspiegel has reported that in November 2010, a month before a violent police crackdown on a post-election protest at the center of Minsk, Belarusian police officers were allowed to observe the dispersal of protesters blocking the way for the Castor nuclear waste train in Germany

Two activists of the Pussy Riot punk rock group who are being sought by Russian police have fled the country following the widely condemned jailing of three members of the group for staging an anti-Vladimir Putin protest in a Moscow cathedral.

Election officials in Belarus have refused to register Alyaksandr Milinkevich as a candidate in the September 23 parliamentary elections.

Lawyers for the three convicted members of the Russian feminist performance-art group Pussy Riot say the women have ruled out asking President Vladimir Putin for a pardon following their sentencing to two years in prison.

Panayot Yevstafevich Zakharopulo’s strength -- as well as his reputation as the fearless protector of one of Kazakhstan’s most cherished nature preserves -- was not enough to prevent his murder in the country’s latest bizarre mass killing

Three members of Russian punk band Pussy Riot have been jailed for two years after staging an anti-Vladimir Putin protest in a Moscow cathedral. Protests were held on 17 August throughout the world, including in Ukraine

Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina, and Yekaterina Samutsevich could face up to seven years in prison for their brief performance in Moscow’s Christ the Savior Cathedral

Savelyov and at least 11 other young Russians could face stiff prison sentences for taking part in a sanctioned antigovernment protest in Moscow that erupted into clashes between police and demonstrators

Members of the Russian punk group Pussy Riot plan to continue their anti-Putin protests despite the trial of three colleagues on hooliganism charges.