On Human Rights Day, NGOs call for accountability and an end to the crackdown in Belarus

Riot police bar­ri­cad­ed behind a water can­non tank fire tear gas against a peace­ful pro­tes­tor dur­ing a ral­ly in Min­sk, Belarus, 25 Octo­ber, 2020, STRINGER/AFP via Get­ty Images

On the occa­sion of Inter­na­tion­al Human Rights Day and in light of recent find­ings on Belarus by both the OSCE’s Moscow Mech­a­nism and the UN High Com­mis­sion­er for Human Rights, the below organ­i­sa­tions are deeply con­cerned about ongo­ing abus­es car­ried out by agents and sup­port­ers of the gov­ern­ment of Pres­i­dent Alexan­der Lukashenko and call for imme­di­ate inves­ti­ga­tions and redress.

The bru­tal crack­down rep­re­sents a fla­grant vio­la­tion of the inter­na­tion­al­ly pro­tect­ed rights to free­dom of expres­sion and infor­ma­tion, asso­ci­a­tion and assem­bly, and the cul­tur­al rights of pro­tes­tors, oppo­si­tion activists, and the jour­nal­ists that have been cov­er­ing the wide­spread and large­ly peace­ful demon­stra­tions in the wake of the 9 August pres­i­den­tial elec­tion results.

The OSCE Moscow Mech­a­nism report – the result of an inves­ti­ga­tion request­ed by OSCE mem­ber states con­cerned with the alarm­ing sit­u­a­tion in Belarus – doc­u­ments, and the research by the sig­na­to­ries of this state­ment show, exten­sive exam­ples of exces­sive police vio­lence and sys­tem­at­ic tor­ture, arbi­trary deten­tions of peace­ful pro­tes­tors and the press, numer­ous polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed pros­e­cu­tions, inter­net shut­downs and web block­ing, as well as a range of oth­er cru­el acts of reprisal against those par­tic­i­pat­ing in or doc­u­ment­ing the protests. On 4 Decem­ber, UN High Com­mis­sion­er for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet con­firmed many of these reports dur­ing an inter­ac­tive oral update and not­ed that no improve­ments had occurred since the Human Rights Coun­cil held an urgent debate on Belarus in Sep­tem­ber – on the con­trary, the cri­sis has only wors­ened.

These find­ings con­firm the reports of human rights and press free­dom organ­i­sa­tions on the ground in Belarus, who con­tin­ue to doc­u­ment abus­es. We would like to draw atten­tion to a num­ber of recent cas­es that are emblem­at­ic of the heinous and pro­tract­ed crack­down.

On 11 Novem­ber, Raman Ban­daren­ka was report­ed­ly beat­en to death while try­ing to pre­vent sym­bols of the protest from being torn down in a pop­u­lar court­yard known by demon­stra­tors as the “Square of Change” in Min­sk. While the ini­tial police report stat­ed that Ban­daren­ka had drunk­en­ly approached a group of “con­cerned cit­i­zens” try­ing to con­front those spread­ing “anti-gov­ern­ment sym­bols”, sub­se­quent reports by local jour­nal­ists and human rights organ­i­sa­tions, as well as pri­or instances of plain­clothes police offi­cers com­mit­ting acts of vio­lence against pro­tes­tors, casts doubt on this the­o­ry and neces­si­tates fur­ther inves­ti­ga­tion.

This case is demon­stra­tive of both the cru­el tar­get­ing of sym­bols and oth­er forms of cul­tur­al resis­tance by poets, artists, musi­cians and oth­ers, as well as the bru­tal­i­ty that has been inflict­ed on pro­tes­tors in the course of car­ry­ing out tens of thou­sands of arrests and dur­ing their ill-treat­ment in deten­tion, includ­ing through the use of tor­ture.

Oth­er alarm­ing instances of repres­sion of cul­tur­al fig­ures include that of musi­cian Ali­ak­sej Sančuk, cur­rent­ly in deten­tion and fac­ing crim­i­nal charges of “gross vio­la­tion of pub­lic order” for using his drums to set the rhythm of the march­es dur­ing protests. Poet Dzmit­ry Stro­caŭ was abduct­ed in the court­yard of his house, hood­ed, hand­cuffed, then tak­en to the KGB (Com­mit­tee for State Secu­ri­ty) fol­low­ing par­tic­i­pa­tion in demon­stra­tions and his expres­sions of sol­i­dar­i­ty through his poet­ry. Rober­to Valdes Casanue­vo, a graph­ic design­er who has been liv­ing in Belarus with his fam­i­ly for over 30 years, faces depor­ta­tion and a ban on entry to Belarus after renew­al of his res­i­dence per­mit was refused due to his sup­port for the protests. He would join many oth­er cul­tur­al work­ers who have been forced to leave Belarus in the cur­rent con­text while the above cas­es are only a few of the near­ly 400 cas­es of cul­tur­al rights vio­la­tions that have been doc­u­ment­ed by organ­i­sa­tions mon­i­tor­ing the sit­u­a­tion signed below.

In addi­tion, among the 9 jour­nal­ists that are cur­rent­ly under inves­ti­ga­tion for car­ry­ing out their pro­fes­sion­al activ­i­ties, Kat­siary­na Bary­se­vich, Kat­siary­na Andreye­va (Bakhvala­va) and Daria Chultso­va are being held behind bars on crim­i­nal charges, in addi­tion to those pros­e­cut­ed on admin­is­tra­tive ones. Bary­se­vich, a jour­nal­ist for TUT.by, is cur­rent­ly under inves­ti­ga­tion for the spu­ri­ous charge of “reveal­ing med­ical secrets” after quot­ing a doc­tor in a news report who stat­ed that no alco­hol was found in Bandarenka’s sys­tem, con­trary to the reports of police. Bel­sat TV jour­nal­ists Andreye­va and Chultso­va are both being held based on charges of orga­niz­ing a gath­er­ing that vio­lates pub­lic order after livestream­ing the vio­lent dis­per­sal of protests in the Square of Change.

These cas­es rep­re­sent just a small frac­tion of more than 400 cas­es of press free­dom vio­la­tions that have occurred dur­ing the protests, includ­ing phys­i­cal attacks, deten­tions, the destruc­tion and seizure of equip­ment, and denial of accred­i­ta­tion.

The Gov­ern­ment of Belarus is a par­ty to the Inter­na­tion­al Covenant on Civ­il and Polit­i­cal Rights (ICCPR), and the abus­es doc­u­ment­ed con­tra­dict sev­er­al arti­cles under that treaty. They also vio­late pro­tec­tions guar­an­teed under the Belaru­sian Con­sti­tu­tion and many would con­sti­tute offences under domes­tic crim­i­nal law.

How­ev­er, Belaru­sian author­i­ties have failed to inves­ti­gate alle­ga­tions of wrong­do­ing by law enforce­ment or oth­er state agents, while over 900 cas­es have been brought against polit­i­cal oppo­nents of the gov­ern­ment. We there­fore urge author­i­ties in Belarus to take the fol­low­ing actions:

• Imme­di­ate­ly release jour­nal­ists Kat­siary­na Bary­se­vich, Kat­siary­na Andreye­va (Bakhvala­va), Daria Chultso­va, musi­cian Ali­ak­sej Sančuk, and oth­ers detained for exer­cis­ing their right to peace­ful assem­bly, free­dom of expres­sion and the press;

• Stop crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tions and review court deci­sions in all admin­is­tra­tive cas­es against jour­nal­ists and oth­er cit­i­zens fac­ing judi­cial harass­ment for express­ing their opin­ions and dis­sem­i­nat­ing infor­ma­tion;

• Con­duct prompt, thor­ough, and impar­tial inves­ti­ga­tions into the beat­ing to death of Raman Ban­daren­ka and all vio­la­tions of the rights of jour­nal­ists, activists, cul­tur­al fig­ures and oth­ers sub­ject­ed to exces­sive force, reprisals, tor­ture and ill-treat­ment dur­ing the protests, to bring those respon­si­ble to jus­tice;

• Adhere to all rec­om­men­da­tions con­tained in the OSCE Moscow Mech­a­nism report per­tain­ing to the 9 August pres­i­den­tial elec­tion, the pro­tec­tion of human rights, and the need for struc­tur­al reform in Belarus;

• Grant the UN Office of the High Com­mis­sion­er for Human Rights and rel­e­vant Spe­cial Pro­ce­dures man­date hold­ers access to the coun­try, in order to con­duct the mon­i­tor­ing activ­i­ties request­ed in Human Rights Coun­cil res­o­lu­tion 45/1.

The under­signed organ­i­sa­tions will con­tin­ue to mon­i­tor the sit­u­a­tion and demand that the above steps be tak­en imme­di­ate­ly, and that the silenc­ing of oppo­si­tion voic­es and the media comes to an end.

Signed

ARTICLE 19
Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists
Com­mit­tee to Pro­tect Jour­nal­ists (CPJ)
PEN Amer­i­ca
PEN Inter­na­tion­al
PEN Nor­way
Reporters With­out Bor­ders (RSF)
IFEX
Belaru­sian PEN Cen­tre