For two days they dealt mainly with technical issues regarding ensuring the stay in our region of short-term, that is, for the very moment of the elections, observers, and there are expected to be 20 of them, and also had several meetings with representatives of public organizations and local media.

In particular, a conversation took place with the leadership of the Volyn branch of the youth coalition "Our Ukraine" and the civic movement "Clean Ukraine". The international observers were interested, first of all, in specific facts of violations of legislation occurring during the current election race.

Describing the situation that has developed at the moment, representatives of the opposition identified three main types of gross violation by the authorities of Ukraine's laws in relation to young people:

1. Pressure on students exerted by heads of educational institutions, both for the purpose of campaigning for the pro-government candidate and for the purpose of prohibiting any civic activity.

2. Violation of legislation and of detention procedures by employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

3. Cases of conversations by representatives of the Security Service of Ukraine with opposition youth regarding non-participation in the election campaign on the side of the opposition.

Specific facts were named, in particular. Thus, in early September at the pedagogy faculty of Lesya Ukrainka Volyn State University, students were ordered to write statements against members of precinct commissions, leaving a blank space where it should be indicated from which candidate, saying "we'll fill it in later."

On September 29 at the technology faculty of Lutsk State Technical University during the 4th period a meeting with students took place, during which the dean of the faculty Molchak V.V. and the chief of staff of the presidential candidate Viktor Yanukovych in Volyn Boichuk P.M. vied with each other in campaigning for Yanukovych.

There are facts of detention of activists of opposition campaigns that took place with gross violations of laws. For example, young people were detained ostensibly to establish identity - at the same time they were not even asked to show a document.

The participants of the meeting unequivocally agreed that the use of administrative influence by the authorities is obvious and this happens in two ways: first, speculating on laws, that is, using means that are on the edge of what is permitted, and second, actual violation of the law.

OSCE observers, for their part, spoke about their goals of staying in Ukraine and their first impressions. The parties agreed to hold a series of meetings with the youth of Volyn for the purpose of acquainting them with the structure and activities of the OSCE and the tasks of the Mission for observation of the 2004 presidential elections in Ukraine.

Maud Johansson and Peter Gold are responsible for two regions: Volyn and Rivne, and although their headquarters is located in Rivne, they will periodically visit Volyn and plan to meet with all participants of the election process.

Press center of the Volyn branch Civic Movement "Clean Ukraine"