UN Representatives’ Meeting With Zubr Coordinators :: Charter'97 :: News

Coordinators of the Zubr movement Alyaksey Shydlouski and Uladzimir Kobets met the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention. The UN Working Group was given the monitoring of human rights service of the Zubr movement, containing more than 1,500 incidents of repressions against Zubr activists. The monitoring contains names of judges, officials, policemen who are implicated in political repression sin Belarus.

Since the beginning of this year the human rights service of the Zubr has stated 204 incidents of activists’ detentions for handing out different informational material. These detentions violated right granted by the Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights – the right for unhindered receiving and dissemination of information. For three and a half years of the movement’s existence, the “Zubr” activists have spent in aggregate 650 days in prison according to the court decisions for dissemination of independent printed materials, participation in peaceful protest rallies. More than 20 criminal actions have been brought up, and 7 of them ended in conviction. 330 activists were fined. 20 Zubr activists were expelled from universities, colleges, and academies, or fired from workplace for political reasons. More than 120 activists were beaten up. One of the local “Zubr” leaders Andrey Zajtsau under pressure of KGB officers committed suicide on December 20, 2001 in Homiel. The influential international organization “Amnesty International” has called more than 100 Zubr activists prisoners of conscience.