Relatives of Political Prisoners calling against Belarus Admission to UN Council on Human Rights :: Charter'97 :: News

Relatives of the Belarusian political prisoners Volga Kazulina and Yulia Kazulina, Viktar Sadousky, Yaugenia Astreika, Valeri Dranchuk, Valyantsina Statkevich, Maria Finkevich forwarded a written appeal to the international public calling against admission of Belarus to the UN Council on Human Rights. That was reported by the press service of Alyaksandr Kazulin.

“We are deeply astonished by of the Belarusian government intentions to nominate Belarus for membership in the newly summoned UN Council on Human Rights. There are political prisoners in Belarus. Candidate for the Belarusian presidency of 2006, leader of the Belarusian Social Democratic Party “Gramada» Alyaksandr Kazulin, political figures Andrei Klimau, Mikalai Statkevich, leaders of the youth movement “Young Front” Pavel Sevyarinets, Artur Finkevich, Zmitser Dashkevich, human rights defender Katsyarina Sadouskaya, youth activist Anton Kishkurna, businessmen Yuri Lyavonau, Mikalai Autukhovich are kept in custody. Leader of the public initiative “Partnyorstva”(partnership) Mikalai Astreika serves his second year of sentence”, the undersigned point out in their letter.

They state that there is no independent judicial system in Belarus; all bodies of the judicial power are kept under direct control of the executive power.

Relatives of the political prisoners point out that the defendants were deprived of the right for fair trial by independent unbiased court and were sentenced for political reasons. The majority of trials of those people were closed for the public.