Human rights defenders condemn mass detentions ahead and during peaceful assemblies on March 25, 2018

Min­sk — March 26, 2018

We, rep­re­sen­ta­tives of Belaru­sian human rights orga­ni­za­tions, strong­ly con­demn the pre­emp­tive deten­tions of activists through­out the coun­try on the eve of mass events in hon­or of the cen­te­nary of the procla­ma­tion of the Belaru­sian People’s Repub­lic, as well as dur­ing and after these peace­ful assem­blies. Accord­ing to human rights defend­ers, on March 25, police offi­cers detained at least 110 peo­ple. At least 12 peo­ple in Min­sk were charged under Art. 23.34 of the Admin­is­tra­tive Code (vio­la­tion of the pro­ce­dure for orga­niz­ing and hold­ing mass events). They can be sub­ject­ed to admin­is­tra­tive deten­tion.

We once again remind that ensur­ing free­dom of assem­bly, as guar­an­teed by the Inter­na­tion­al Covenant on Civ­il and Polit­i­cal Rights and the Con­sti­tu­tion of Belarus, is a polit­i­cal oblig­a­tion of the state.

We are par­tic­u­lar­ly con­cerned about the harass­ment of jour­nal­ists in con­nec­tion with their pro­fes­sion­al activ­i­ties. At least sev­en such instances were doc­u­ment­ed, includ­ing five jour­nal­ists detained dur­ing the cov­er­age of the peace­ful assem­bly in Yakub Kolas Square in Min­sk.

Dur­ing the mon­i­tor­ing of the assem­bly in Yakub Kolas Square police offi­cers detained eight observers of the joint mon­i­tor­ing ser­vice of the Belaru­sian Helsin­ki Com­mit­tee and the Human Rights Cen­ter «Vias­na». We con­sid­er it unac­cept­able to pros­e­cute human rights defend­ers in con­nec­tion with their peace­ful activ­i­ties in mon­i­tor­ing peace­ful assem­blies.

We stress that human rights activ­i­ties should be guar­an­teed by the state in accor­dance with the Dec­la­ra­tion on the Right and Respon­si­bil­i­ties of Indi­vid­u­als, Groups and Organs of Soci­ety to Pro­mote and Pro­tect Uni­ver­sal­ly Rec­og­nized Human Rights and Fun­da­men­tal Free­doms approved by the UN Gen­er­al Assem­bly Res­o­lu­tion 53/144 of Decem­ber 9, 1998.

We, rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Belaru­sian human rights com­mu­ni­ty, call on the author­i­ties to:

• imme­di­ate­ly release the pre­emp­tive­ly detained activists;

• put an end to the prac­tice of pres­sure, deten­tion and bring­ing to admin­is­tra­tive respon­si­bil­i­ty of par­tic­i­pants in peace­ful assem­blies;

• ensur­ing that jour­nal­ists and human rights defend­ers are able to car­ry out their pro­fes­sion­al activ­i­ties with­out hin­drance and with­out threats;

• drop the admin­is­tra­tive charges against human rights defend­ers.

Belaru­sian Helsin­ki Com­mit­tee

Legal Ini­tia­tive

Human Rights Cen­ter «Vias­na»

Barys Zvozskau Belaru­sian Human Rights House

Advi­so­ry Cen­ter on Con­tem­po­rary Inter­na­tion­al Prac­tices and their Legal Imple­men­ta­tion “Human Con­stan­ta”

Cen­ter for Legal Trans­for­ma­tion

Expert and Legal Part­ner­ship “Ini­tia­tive FORB”

Belaru­sian Doc­u­men­ta­tion Cen­ter

Ini­tia­tive Group “Iden­ti­ty and Law”

Office for the Rights of Per­sons with Dis­abil­i­ties

Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists