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Friday, 05 October 2007 |
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OSCE Human Dimension Implementation MeetingWarsaw, 24 Sep – 05 Oct 2007
Public associations engaged in the promotion of democratic values and defense of human rights face constant pressure from the authorities. Depriving NGOs of the right to lease or rent office premises lead to a loss of "legal address" and consequently to the liquidation of the organization. The closures or suspensions of public organizations by courts remain a widespread practice.
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Friday, 05 October 2007 |
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OSCE Human Dimension Implementation Meeting
Warsaw, 24 Sep – 05 Oct 2007
The constitution of Belarus vows freedom of association, and the President dissolved the National Commission on Registration of Public Associations, a body notorious for its arbitrary decisions. Nevertheless, other legal provisions continue to restrict civil society activities and practiced by many authorities have toughened from year to year forcing public associations to the margins of legality or entirely to stop their operation.
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Friday, 28 September 2007 |
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Thursday, 12 July 2007 |
Statement by the Belarusian Helsinki Committee
OSCE Supplementary Human Dimension Meeting on Protection and Promotion of Human Rights,
Vienna, 12-13 July 2007
Serious restrictions on civil society activities remain in place in Belarus. By law all NGOs must be registered with the authorities to operate legally, and it is a crime punishable with up to two years in prison to organize or participate in the activities of unregistered organizations.
• The government has repeatedly refused to register the youth movement Young Front and prosecutes its activists just for being members of an unregistered public group that carries out legitimate activities linked to human rights. 1 November 2006, Dzmitry Dashkevich, leader of the movement, sentenced to 18 months imprisonment.
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Friday, 22 June 2007 |
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The Belarusian Helsinki Committee (BHC) is disappointed by the fact that the final text of the proposal document on institution-building that was presented by the President of UN Human Rights Council and adopted after hot debates has no mentioning of Belarus.
The report of Mr Luis Alfonso de Alba (Mexico), President of the UN Human Rights Council, was a final document of the Council's fifth session, which had also considered the report of Mr Adrian Severin, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Belarus.
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Thursday, 14 June 2007 |
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IHF and FIDH appeal to Human Rights Council not to terminate the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Belarus
Geneva, 12 June 2007. The International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHF) and the International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH) are strongly concerned over the grave situation of human rights in Belarus, which remains the worst in Europe.
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Tuesday, 22 May 2007 |
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The United Nations General Assembly rejected the request of Belarus on its inclusion into the UN Human Rights Council.
On the first ballot amongst three competing states in the Eastern European Group, Slovenia was elected with 168 votes of 190 UN member-states. Bosnia and Herzegovina received 95 votes, and Belarus got 78. To be elected to the Council the country-candidate should receive at least 97 votes. The second round resulted for Bosnia and Herzegovina in 112 votes giving 72 for Belarus.
UN General Assembly resolution 60/251, which established the Human Rights Council, requires that the Council’s members “fully cooperate with the Council” and “uphold the highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights.” At the same time, by estimations of the international organizations, the situation of human rights in Belarus is the worst in the Europe.
The Belarusian Helsinki Committee (BHC) expresses its regret at the inconformity of the Belarus' state policy with high requirements of the United Nations in observance of human rights principles that were the reason of the rejection of the Belarus' request on its inclusion into the Council.
The BHC believes, that for election of Belarus into Human Rights Council serious positive changes are needed in the state politics concerning the citizens rights, including the right to participate in governing the state, freedom of expression, freedom of association and the media, right to peaceful assembly and the right to fair trial.
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Monday, 14 May 2007 |
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Vienna/Minsk, 11 May 2007:
The International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHF) and the Belarusian Helsinki Committee (BHC) appeal to the UN General Assembly not to elect Belarus to the UN Human Rights Council on 17 May in view of the Belarusian government’s failure to fulfill even the minimum criteria established by the General Assembly for this position.
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Wednesday, 11 April 2007 |
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Belarus: Arrest of Andrei Klimau for Alleged Internet Statements Shows Use of the Criminal Code to Suppress Dissent
Statement by the Belarusian Helsinki Committee and the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights
Minsk, Vienna, 10 April 2007.
The arrest on 3 April 2007 of opposition activist Andrei Klimau on charges of violating Article 361 of the Criminal code for statements allegedly made in an Internet publication is the first use of the article by prosecutors, and an indication of how the law can be used to infringe on the freedom of expression.
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Saturday, 31 March 2007 |
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On the 25th of March coming back to Estonia from Ukraine, the technical coordinator of the “Third Way” Andrey Obzorov was arrested by Russian police in Tver. Andrey was taken from the train #34 Moscow-Tallinn. The police officers who were performing the arrest stated that Obzorov is in the federal detection. According to A. Suzdalcev, famous Russian political analyst who was deported from Belarus in 2006, this information was not further confirmed. Suzdalcev, as soon as he learnt about the incident, urgently contacted Security Council of Russian Federation. As they later found out, the detection was started only on this line of Russian lailways. This makes us suppose that in the Russian Ministry of Inner Affairs there are “moles” working for the Belarusian secret services, who organized Obzorov’s arrest carrying out an assignment from Minsk referring to federal detection.
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Friday, 30 March 2007 |
“Belarusian Partisan”
Vice-head of the Gomel region chapter of UCP Valdimir Katsora, who was sentenced to 5 days of administrative arrest, entered a protest hunger-strike. On March 27th the Soviet district court of Gomel has sentenced the politician for his allegedly petty hooliganism and not coming to the police office for 5 days of arrest and a fine of 5 basic values. On the same day V. Katsora, who was put in the isolated center of provisional detention, started a hunger strike and managed to achieve what he demanded. As human rights defender Leonid Sudalenko told information agency BelaPAN, Katzura demanded to be transferred him into a single ward and be able to use mobile phone. The right to phone communication is put down in the new Processual-executive Codex on the administrative offences. The leadership of the regional chapter of OCP addressed the head of the detention facility Sergej Doroh with a request to give back to Katsora the mobile phone that was confiscated during arrest. As L. Sudalenko said, lieutenant colonel S. Doroh promised democratic activists that the convict will be allowed to use his mobile when he requests it. Today the demand of Katsora and his party members was fulfilled. As well, the vice-head of UCP was transferred to a single ward starting from the second day of his arrest. Nevertheless, Katsora wants to continue his hunger strike to express his disagreement with the decision of the court. His arrest is to be over on March 31st at 19.00.
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Wednesday, 28 March 2007 |
Three activists of “Young Front” were transformed from suspects to the status of accused
On March 28th the Minsk Prosecutor’s Office indicted three activists of the unregistered organization “Young Front” – Dzmitry Hvedaruk, Oleg Korban and Boris Goretsky. The later is under administrative arrest in the special detention facility in the Okrestina street and will only be released on April 2nd.
As the lawyer of young people, Pavel Sopelko, told the “Belarusian Partisan”, all members of “Young Front” are accused with active participation in an unregistered organization (Art 193.1 of the Criminal Code). Two more activists, Palazhanka Anastasia and Janushevski Alexei, are supposed to be interrogated tomorrow. It is expected that they also will be indicted with the same crime. Article 193.1 forsees up to two years of imprisonment as the charge. “Young Front” leade, Dzmitry Dashkevich is already convicted under this article for 1,5 years of imprisonment.
A written undertaking not to leave the town was taken from the young people. From tomorrow on the lawyers can get access to the case materials.
Denis Rutkovsky, “Belarusian Partisan”
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Wednesday, 28 March 2007 |
 Presentation of IHF Annual Report on the development of human rights situation in the OSCE region.
On March 27th 2007 in the Independent Press-Center the press-conference dedicated to presentation of the IHF Annual Report on human rights developments in the participating states of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in the year 2006. The report is entitled Human Rights in the OSCE Region: Europe, Central Asia and North America, Report 2007 (Events of 2006).
Following people participated in the press-conference: Aaron Rhodes, IHF executive director, Nina Tagankina, executive director of the Moscow Helsinki Group, Dmitry Markusheuski, BHC press-secretary.
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Wednesday, 14 March 2007 |
“Belarusian partisan”
Leaders of opposition were arrested in Minsk
As “Belarusian Partisan” found out the leader of the party BPF was arrested in the night from Tuesday to Wednesday. On the evening of March 13th the opposition activist Viacheslav Sivchik. The police special forces were helping with arrests.
The office of BPF was surveiled all the day on the 13th March. The OMON forces were guarding in the yard. But they decided not to arrest the BPF leader then, since he was in the office with his 9-years old daughter. He was arrested later at home, after 23.00.
The son of the arrested politician Frank Vechorka told to RFL/RL at midnight that he’s trying to find his father in the police departments of different districts, but he’s told everywhere that they don’t have his father. Most likely he was taken to the detention center in Okrestina street, they’re gonna call there in the morning
A report of administrative violation has been drawn up against Vyachaslau Siuchyk, who was detained around 20.13 today. As one of the police officers said “He looks like a criminal who robbed some person. He will have to go through the procedure of identification”.
As Belarusian office of RFE/RL reported the flat of press-secretary and activist of “Youth Front” Boris Goretsky was searched in the night by KGB. They tried to break the door of the flat when Goretsky was still not at home. Before that KGB searched the flat of activist’s mother. On March 14th Boris Goretsky is supposed to be interrogated in the criminal case against “Young Front”. It is clear that KGB is searching for the reasons to arrest Goretsky.
It’s still not known where the leaders of opposition were taken in the night. It’s most likely that they will not be released in the next few weeks. As well, there is no information whether other opposition representatives were also detained.
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Wednesday, 07 March 2007 |
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Searches in the Mogilev Office of BYF
At this moment the regional office of the NGO BYF is being searched. Three policemen, who didn’t introduce themselves and didn’t present any documents, are in the BYH Mogilev office and are confiscating newspapers.
Information from the Mogilev office of BHC
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Press about BHC
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What has official propaganda kept silent about?
Charter 97
Today the Belarusian official mass media distributed information about the UNO Committee on human rights publishing its conclusion on a number of private individuals’ claims. Particularly, the BelTA agency reported “In the claims of citizens in which the governments of Belarus and Canada has been involved the UNO Committee on human rights has not discovered evidences of any violations”. Who from Belarus claimed and of what the official agency does not inform. The situation has been cleared up in the interview of the spokesman for the Belarusian Helsinki Committee Zmitser Markusheusky in his interview with the Charter’ 97 press-center.
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Belarusian Rights Group Allowed To Reopen Office
Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
Belarusian authorities backtracked today, reversing a decision to evict a leading human rights group from its office in Minsk.
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EU Condemns Eviction of Belarusian Rights Group
Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said today the eviction of the Belarusian Helsinki Committee from its offices in Minsk was an "act of harassment."
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Belarus condemned over eviction
BBC NEWS
The US has condemned a decision by Belarus to evict a human rights group, the Belarusian Helsinki Committee, from its offices in the capital, Minsk.
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Belarus authorities expel leading human rights group from its offices
International Herald Tribune
MINSK, Belarus: Belarus authorities have expelled leading human rights organization the Belarusian Helsinki Committee from its offices, the group said Monday.
"The government wants to take revenge for our human rights activities and are trying to destroy us," Helsinki Committee's head Tatyana Protko said.
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