Amnesty International offers to watch hockey in Minsk with political prisoners

Human rights activists from Amnesty International launch a media campaign “Virtual ice hockey stadium”.

The organisation is going to call the Belarusian authorities to release the political prisoners immediately and unconditionally.

You can visit the “Virtual ice hockey stadium” on the website of Amnesty International (www.amnesty.org). The initiative invites people to show solidarity by booking tickets to sit alongside Belarusian prisoners of conscience Ales Bialiatski, Mikalai Statkevich and Eduard Lobau at the human rights “match” in Belarus. The signatures will be collected and sent to Lukashenka.

The authors of the project will spread information about human right violations in Belarus and the recent preventive arrests. The activists also try to raise awareness of the repressive civil rights legislation in Belarus, BelaPAN reports.

Human rights defenders note that the current law on mass events includes provisions which make it practically impossible to hold any sort of public gathering without the express permission of the authorities.

“This severely restricts the right to freedom of assembly, or even activism by single individuals,” Amnesty International says.

Human rights defenders also have questions to the Criminal Code, which criminalises the activities of unregistered non-governmental organisations.

“Belarus won’t win any fans until it starts to play by the rules,” John Dalhuisen, Amensty's Deputy Director for Europe and Central Asia, said. “Releasing prisoners of conscience and lifting repressive laws would be a good place to begin,” he underscored.