(26 Apr 2008) SHOTLIST
1. Protesters at Belarus Academy of Science building
2. Rally and protesters with flags
3. Protesters with flags and portraits of opposition leader Alexander Milinkevich
4. Various close ups of people listening
5. Milinkevich addressing rally
6. SOUNDBITE (Russian) Alexander Milinkevich, Belarusian opposition leader:
"This is the day of memory of those who died as the result of Chernobyl accident. This is the struggle for the social rights of Chernobyl rescuers, and a protest against the building of a new nuclear power station"
7. Various of young protesters, AUDIO: chanting (Russian): "Freedom to political prisoners"
8. Masked protesters with banner (Russian): "We Don't Want Dead Children"
9. Masked protesters with banner (Russian): "No to Second Chernobyl"
10. Close up of drawing depicting human evolution ending in a nuclear mushroom blast
11. Column of protesters with flags
12. Protesters with banner (Russian: "Nuclear Energy Is a Dead End"
13. Various of protesters chanting, AUDIO: (Russian) "No To NPS!" (Nuclear Power Station)
14. Various of marchers chanting AUDIO: (Russian) "Long Live Belarus"
STORYLINE
Several thousand supporters of the beleaguered Belarus opposition marched through the capital Minsk on Saturday to mark the anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear accident and protest against an alleged government cover-up of the disaster's consequences.
Many of the approximately 3,000 marchers expressed particular dismay over the government's policy of assigning recent university graduates to work in areas contaminated by the 1986 nuclear reactor explosion.
An explosion at Chernobyl, in Ukraine, just south of the border with Belarus, spewed a cloud of radiation over much of Europe, and Belarus, just downwind, was severely affected.
In recent years, the government has removed about 1,000 cities and towns from the radiation danger list, despite critics who described a continuing health risk.
Statistics about illness in the contaminated parts of Belarus, about 23 percent of the country, are kept secret by the government of authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko.
The government says that the areas it has removed from the danger list are safe to return to.
Protesters said the government was denying help to people affected by the disaster, including those who were sent in to clean up radioactive fallout.
Lukashenko's government rarely allows opposition rallies and participants took the opportunity of Saturday's sanctioned gathering to raise protests against his hardline rule, with anti-government signs and the now-banned red-and-white flag that was the first flag of post-Soviet Belarus.
The demonstration was peaceful and ended without incident.
Radiation levels have declined substantially in most areas near Chernobyl, but scientists disagree on the level of risk.
Some doctors who work in towns downwind from Chernobyl say the health effects are still being felt, and students being sent into these areas are afraid.
The work assignments began last year and about a quarter of this year's 21,000 graduates are being sent to the contaminated areas.
Vice Prime Minister Alexander Kosinets said at parliamentary hearings on Friday that if the work assignments were cancelled, these regions would be left without the doctors, teachers, agricultural workers and other specialists they need.
Some of the young professionals sent to contaminated regions last year have already fled and the Education Nministry has said that 800 graduates have refused to take up their work assignments this year.
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