«We are highly concerned about the new wave of restrictions on civil and political rights in Belarus in recent months : the rights to the freedoms of information, peaceful assembly, association and expression are being blatantly violated», said Souhayr Belhassen, President of FIDH. «Our fear is that this is part of a deliberate pressure on the part of the authorities ahead of the presidential elections».
Of particular concern is the fact that Belarus is the only country in Europe and in the post-Soviet block where the death penalty is not only legal but is also implemented regardless of appeals from the international community. «The executions of Andrei Zhuk and Vasilii Yuzepchuk in March 2010 despite the fact that their cases were pending at the Human Rights Committee and the two death sentences passed on 14 May 2010 against Oleg Grishkovets and Andrei Burdyko are evidence of the unwillingness of Belarus to follow the fundamental principles of human rights», said Ales Bialiatski, Vice-president of FIDH and President of the Human Rights Centre Viasna.
Human rights defenders who have been working throughout the last few years under conditions involving great risks, are now facing additional difficulties. Indeed, the regional offices of human rights defenders have undergone a series of searches. On 30 April 2010, a search was carried out and computer equipment confiscated from the office of the human rights defender Dmitrii Solovyev, in Novopolotsk. Police confiscated his computer equipment under the pretext that neo-Nazi slogans had appeared on the walls of houses in the town, regardless of the fact that Mr. Solovyev has made several unsuccessful appeals to the police concerning the neo-Nazi slogans in the town and on the wall of his office. In 2007 and 2009, Mr Solovyev repeatedly gave the address of his office to the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Belarus as the legal address for registration of the human rights organisation Nasha Viasna, whose members attempted to register after the official liquidation of the Human Rights Centre Viasna by the Belarussian authorities in 2003. Mr. Solovyev is one of the founding members of Nasha Viasna.
On 19 May 2010, a search was carried out in the office of Valerii Putitskii, another of the founders of the human rights organisation Nasha Viasna, in the town of Rechitsa.
In addition, there have been a series of searches carried out at the work places and in the private homes of a number of journalists, including Marina Koktysh, a journalist for one of Belarus’ leading independent newspapers Narodnaya Volya, Svetlana Kalinkina, the newspaper’s deputy editor, and also the prominent independent journalist Irina Khalip, and Natalia Radina, a journalist for the Khartia-97 website. All these journalists are witnesses in a criminal trial concerning the alleged defamation of the KGB general Ivan Korzh. Computers were confiscated,and searched,their passwords were cracked in order to access email and skype correspondence. FIDH and the Human Rights Center Viasna fear that these acts aim at putting pressure on leading independent media journalists ahead of the presidential elections. FIDH and the Human Rights Centre Viasna are concerned that the journalists will be arbitrarily accused of crimes, preventing them from appearing as witnesses in the above mentioned trial.
On 18 and 19 May, 2010, in more than 20 cities in Belarus, searches were carried out in the private flats and offices of NGO activists of the civic campaign Speak the Truth. Several dozen people were arbitrarily arrested as a result of these searches. The leaders of the campaign, Vladimir Neklyaev, Sergei Voznyak and Andrei Dmitriev, spent three days in a temporary isolator (IVS) in Minsk as suspects according to article 250 of the penal code (spreading false information about goods and services). They were released on 21 May, 2010. We believe that this heavy handed action which was endorsed by the Belarus authorities was intended to scare the campaign activists and Mr. Neklyaev in particular, as he is a potential candidate in the forthcoming presidential election in Belarus. Furthermore, on 3 March 2010, Andrei Sannikov, the leader of the civic initiative European Belarus, was subjected to a search and interrogation. The day before, he had also announced his intention to stand as a candidate in the forthcoming presidential elections.
Moreover, FIDH and the Human Rights Centre Viasna note that, at present, in the country there are people still held in prison whom we believe have been prosecuted and convicted on account of their political activity. For example, the opposition activist Oleg Surgan was convicted by the Oktyabrsky court in Vitebsk on 19 February 2010 to six months detention under article 364 of the Criminal Code (violence or threat of violence against a police officer).
On 14 May 2010, the Conservative Christian party activist Sergei Kovalenko was sentenced to house arrest for three years with permission to go to work and be outside for no more than 1,5 hour per day by the Vitebsk October court under articles 339 (deliberate act, gross violation of public order and expressing obvious disrespect for society) and 363 (resisting a police officer or other public order official) for hanging the national Belarusian white and red striped flag from the Vitebsk Christmas tree on 7 January 2010 (orthodox Christmas day).
To this day, Tatiana Tishkevich, Aleksei Bondar and Mikhail Krivov who were sentenced to imprisonment for taking part in the peaceful protest demonstration by entrepreneurs in January 2009, have not been granted amnesty and are being forced to live outside the Republic of Belarus because of threats of additional criminal proceedings. On 15 June 2009, Maksim Dashuk was sentenced for a second time to house arrest for one year and three months with permission to go to work and be outside for no more than 1,5 hour per day. To this day he is serving his sentence. During the elections for local council deputies of the 26th assembly in April 2010, the KGB directorate for the Grodnenskaya province brought criminal proceedings against one of the candidates, Ales Zarembyuk, a political activist of the For Freedom (Za Svobodu) party from the town of Mosty. Mr. Zarembyuk is a well-known young politician who was deputy for the Mosty regional Council of Deputies from 2003 to 2007 and has repeatedly stood as a candidate in local and parliamentary elections.
On 1 July 2010, Decree No. 60 on measures to improve the utilisation of the national segment of the Internet will come into effect. This decree was signed by President Lukashenko on 1 February 2010 and could seriously restrict the rights of citizens to receive and disseminate information.
FIDH and the Human Rights Centre Viasna call upon the authorities of Belarus to :
– Release without further delay all people convicted for political reasons who are in prison or are serving other forms of punishment which restrict their freedom, and grant amnesty to those formerly convicted for participating in a peaceful demonstration and ensure that they may return to their homeland;
– Stop the practice of arbitrarily arresting citizens for political reasons and take effective steps to investigate existing cases of illegal arrests, and conform with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and its first Optional Protocol and with the OSCE Human Dimension commitments relating to civil and political rights.
– Stop the persecution of human rights defenders and conform in all circumstances with the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights Defenders.
– Stop the persecution of journalists and social and political activists and ensure that all the country’s citizens have the right to participate freely in the forthcoming presidential electoral campaign; take effective steps to ensure the freedom of the independent media, both domestic and foreign;
– Promote the role of the judiciary in Belarus and ensure that the executive does not interfere in the administration of justice and fulfil the recommendations of the UN Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers; ensure appropriate publicity for the judicial process; conform with the OSCE Human Dimension commitments in particular in the field of the Rule of Law.
– Introduce a moratorium on the death penalty, ratify the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and take steps to remove the death penalty from the penal system;
– Pass legislation in accordance with international standards relating to freedom of assembly after simplifying and curtailing the procedure of notification, suppress the obligation for organisers to pay the costs of guaranteeing law and order and safety for citizens and suppress the groundless restrictions on place, time and procedure for holding events;
– Appropriately implement the duty of the state to protect the right to peaceful assembly by improving the mechanisms and procedures which will enable the freedom of assembly to be practised without excessive bureaucratic regulation; Investigate every case of arbitrary prohibition of peaceful protests and the persecution of its participants.