Prominent opposition figure Halina Syamdzyanava dies at 64

• 19.09.2011, 17:21

Halina Syamdzyanava, a prominent opposition figure who was a member of the Belarusian parliament, died from a disease on September 18 at the age of 64.

Ms. Syamdzyanava, who was born on February 28, 1947 in the Polish city of Gdynia into the family of a Soviet Navy officer and a military hospital nurse, was a member of the Supreme Soviet (parliament) between 1990 and 1996.

She was one of the authors of the 1991 Declaration of State Sovereignty and other historic acts adopted by the Belarusian parliament following the collapse of the USSR.

Ms. Syamdzyanava, who was deputy chairperson of the Belarusian Popular Front (BPF) between 2002 and 2006, represented the BPF in the central election commission during parliamentary elections in 2008 and in the Minsk city election commission during last year’s presidential election.

She was among the 86 prominent members of the BPF who withdrew from the party in February 2011 in protest against the policy of its new leadership.

"The party’s life since the 2009 convention and especially the results of the most recent presidential campaign have convinced us once and for all that the policy of the current leadership of the BPF is inconsistent with modern challenges and contradicts the very spirit of national democratic ideology, freedom, morality and integrity, with which the Belarusian Popular Front has been associated since the day of its founding in 1988," the group said in its statement.

“Halina Syamdzyanava was one of the key figures of the pro-democracy opposition,” Vintsuk Vyachorka, who chaired the BPF between 1999 and 2007, said in an interview with BelaPAN. “Everyone who met her noted her adherence to the principles of truth and justice and her spirited defense of democratic values. The current Belarusian authorities simultaneously feared and respected her.”