Raad van Europa veroordeelt mensenrechtenschendingen in Wit-Rusland (en)

Strasbourg, 16.09.2005 - The Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE), meeting in Paris this morning, adopted the following declaration :

"The Committee condemns the systematic and worsening campaign of intimidation and persecution of independent journalists and civil society activists in the Republic of Belarus.

The Committee denounces the recent crackdown on the Union of Belarusian Poles and Polish-language media outlets. Nikolai Statkevich, Pavel Severinets and Andrey Klimov were recently sentenced for organising demonstrations, following politically motivated trials. In August, two activists of Georgia's Kmara youth organisation were detained in Minsk, held incommunicado without being charged and denied access to a lawyer or a consular official for five days. Amnesty International recognised them, as well as three activists of Belarusian youth organisation Zubr who were arrested after staging protests against the detention of Kmara activists, as prisoners of conscience.

Such actions of the Belarusian authorities are incompatible with freedom of expression and the right of peaceful assembly, which Belarus undertook to respect under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of the United Nations and the OSCE Helsinki Final Act.

Whilst welcoming the early release of scientist Yuri Bandazhevski, who was sentenced to eight year imprisonment in June 2001 after he criticised the government's handling of the Chernobyl disaster consequences, the Committee calls on the authorities to release immediately all other persons in custody who were prosecuted for their political activity or criticism of the government.

The Committee is disturbed by the criminal proceedings for libel of the President of Belarus against the authors of animated Internet cartoons posted on the web-site of the Belarusian Third Way Youth Association. It urges the Belarusian authorities to refrain from using criminal libel and defamation laws to stifle freedom of expression. The Committee also calls for the immediate release of Valery Levaneusky who was sentenced in September 2004 to two years of imprisonment for publicly insulting President Lukashenka in a satirical leaflet.

Finally, the Committee calls on all independent journalists and civil society activists in the Republic of Belarus to ignore the campaign of intimidation and continue their struggle for democracy and respect for human rights."

Contact:

Communication Unit of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly

Tel. +33 3 88 41 31 93 Fax +33 3 90 21 41 34; e-mail: pace.com@coe.int