The Memory Day Dziady (Ancestors) is one of the most important traditional Christian memorial days of the Belarusan people. This day the people remember its ancestors, this is a day of the prayer and the memory. Since the beginning of the Belarusan Rebirth in 1988 the Belarusans go this day to Kurapaty - a forest near Minsk where the Russian occupants had killed and buried in 1937-41 more than 250 thousand innocent persons. But since 1994 when the pro-Russian dictatorial Lukashenka regime had been established in our country the anti-popular authorities tried to liquidate this popular tradition. In the last years the authorities organized many provocations, arrested and intimidated the persons which went to Kurapaty. In 2001 the regime has tried to destroy our national holy place and to annihilate the tombs of the Belarusan martyrs in Kurapaty. But the people has defended its holy place against the state vandals and erected hundreds of crosses on the tombs of the martyrs.
This year the anti-Belarusan regime continues the infamous practice of the mockery on the popular memory and the national holy place. The Conservative Christian Party - BPF has presented an official request to the authorities in order to carry on a memorial march in Minsk and a memorial rally in Kurapaty. The city authorities have permitted the memorial march on the pavements in Minsk. But the authorities of the Minsk region (for the first time since 1988) didn’t permit the memorial rally in Kurapaty - it is clear that this decision has been taken by the central Lukashenka administration. In accordance with this permission the people has right to march to Kurapaty but the people ought remain mute on the tombs of its ancestors-martyrs. This is an act of the mockery by the anti-popular regime against the holy human memory. We have the experience that the regime will use this day in order to make the provocations. After the false «victory» on the electoral farce the Lukashenka regime is trying to liquidate every people’s initiative, every manifestation of the human and real Christian tradition.
October 31, 2004 the people will march on the streets of Minsk and will pray for the holy memory of our martyrs in Kurapaty. We hope that the international community of the democratic countries will turn its attention to the events in Belarus.
The leadership of the Conservative Christian Party - BPF