BHC Drafts Report on Human Rights Abuses in Belarus :: Charter'97 :: News

On February 18 the Belarusian Helsinki Committee presented to the public and journalists a report on the human rights violations in Belarus, drafted by the International Helsinki Federation (IHF). The document, complied on the basis of the materials from 14 BHC public receptions and mass media reports, lists human rights violations’ occurrences, which characterize the situation in general, as well as discloses most blatant abuses over the year 2002. The report also cites the facts of state’s infringement on such fundamental human freedoms as the freedom of speech, associations, conscience, peaceful assemblies and a right for fair trial.

BHC draws the attention to the unsolved disappearance cases of prominent opposition members, exertion of pressure on free press, passage of the discriminative religious law, corruption and poor living conditions in the Belarusian penitentiary institutions. Moreover, the report likewise points out that “unsatisfactory evaluation of human rights situation in Belarus is mostly caused by the lack of democracy and disregard for the rule of law. By their disrespect for the law, the top officials, elected via undemocratic ways, put in effect a vicious chain reaction, which turns every individual into a potential victim of theirs”.

In a conversation with the BelaPAN correspondent the press-secretary of the Belarusian Helsinki Committee Dmitry Markushevsky said this: “We prepare such reports for the IHF on an annual basis. The document will be circulated in the Belarusian media and among the officials, including the Foreign Ministry, which writes periodic reports to the UN Commission for human rights. The last of their reports arrived at the destination 1,5 later than expected. We, in our turn, prepared an alternative report instead of the official one and forwarded it to the UN Commission. Public human rights organizations have every right to do that”.