Resolution of the 4th Belarusian Human Rights Forum

We, the par­tic­i­pants of the IV Belaru­sian Human Rights Forum, rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the nation­al human rights com­mu­ni­ty of Belarus, work­ing both inside the coun­try and forced­ly abroad, point out to the fol­low­ing:

Since the pre­vi­ous Belaru­sian Human Rights Forum that was held in Octo­ber 2013, the coun­try has made the cer­tain pos­i­tive steps towards respect of human rights. How­ev­er, the over­all sit­u­a­tion has not appre­cia­bly changed.

No mea­sures have been tak­en to achieve sys­temic and qual­i­ty improve­ments in the human rights sit­u­a­tion:

• Belarus con­tin­ues to use the death penal­ty;
• the nation­al leg­is­la­tion and law enforce­ment prac­tice restrict the basic civ­il and polit­i­cal rights;
• the nation­al mech­a­nisms for the pro­tec­tion of human rights are inef­fec­tive,
• a nation­al human rights insti­tu­tion has not been estab­lished,
• the state fails to estab­lish effec­tive inter­ac­tion with civ­il soci­ety enti­ties;
• the coun­try demon­strates selec­tiv­i­ty when it comes to the imple­men­ta­tion of the inter­na­tion­al human rights oblig­a­tions.

The release of all the polit­i­cal pris­on­ers in August 2015 was a pos­i­tive move on the part of the Belaru­sian author­i­ties. Since that time, until March 2017, the Belaru­sian author­i­ties refrained from severe reprisals against the polit­i­cal oppo­nents, civ­il soci­ety activists and jour­nal­ists.

The dete­ri­o­ra­tion of the eco­nom­ic sit­u­a­tion and the wide appli­ca­tion of Pres­i­den­tial Decree #3 “On Pre­ven­tion of Social Par­a­sitism”, which con­tra­dicts the Con­sti­tu­tion of the Repub­lic of Belarus, result­ed in the growth of protest activ­i­ty in Belarus in the spring of 2017. In response to this, the author­i­ties returned to the wide use of repres­sive prac­tices:

• arbi­trary deten­tions and arrests of peace­ful pro­test­ers and human rights defend­ers;
• inter­fer­ing with jour­nal­ists’ work;
• polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion;
• search­es and seizures of equip­ment;
• expelling stu­dents from uni­ver­si­ties for polit­i­cal rea­sons.

Dur­ing the spring of 2017, more than a thou­sand peo­ple in the coun­try were sub­ject­ed to repres­sion, and over 100 of them were arrest­ed. Seri­ous pres­sure was put on human rights defend­ers and jour­nal­ists who were car­ry­ing out their pro­fes­sion­al duties.  The author­i­ties still resort to repres­sive mea­sures. The human rights com­mu­ni­ty is par­tic­u­lar­ly con­cerned about the inter­fer­ence with the activ­i­ties of the Bar on the part of the state: the lawyers work­ing on polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed cas­es face repres­sion and pres­sure.

Mikhail Zham­chuzh­ny and Dzmit­ry Palien­ka rec­og­nized as polit­i­cal pris­on­ers by the Belaru­sian human rights com­mu­ni­ty, remain in prison. The human rights defend­er Ele­na Tonkache­va is forced to stay out­side Belarus due to the deci­sion of the Belaru­sian author­i­ties on her exile. Crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings were insti­gat­ed against the lead­ers of the REP trade union, Henadz Fia­dyn­ich and Ihar Kom­lik, on charges of tax eva­sion and against 16 cit­i­zens of the Repub­lic of Belarus on charges of orga­niz­ing an ille­gal armed group.

The lack of infor­ma­tion about the mea­sures tak­en by the author­i­ties to imple­ment the OSCE/ODIHR rec­om­men­da­tions on reform­ing of elec­toral leg­is­la­tion also rais­es con­cerns.

The Belaru­sian human rights com­mu­ni­ty has sup­port­ed the approval of the Inter-Min­is­te­r­i­al Plan of imple­men­ta­tion of the rec­om­men­da­tions adopt­ed by Belarus as part of the sec­ond cycle of the Uni­ver­sal Peri­od­ic Review, as well as those for­mu­lat­ed for Belarus by the human rights treaty bod­ies, despite the fact that the plan lacks mea­sures to improve the sit­u­a­tion of the cer­tain human rights, for exam­ple, the free­dom of asso­ci­a­tion and free­dom of speech. How­ev­er, to date, there is nei­ther pub­licly acces­si­ble infor­ma­tion there about any com­pre­hen­sive prac­ti­cal mea­sures tak­en to imple­ment the Plan, nor pub­lic reports on its imple­men­ta­tion. Besides, the adop­tion of the Plan has not yet result­ed in the cre­ation of per­ma­nent plat­forms for the inter­ac­tion of the gov­ern­ment agen­cies with the Belaru­sian human rights com­mu­ni­ty, although the lat­ter has repeat­ed­ly urged the Gov­ern­ment to do this.

We also pos­i­tive­ly eval­u­ate the rat­i­fi­ca­tion by the Repub­lic of Belarus of the UN Covenant on the Rights of Per­sons with Dis­abil­i­ties and the adop­tion of the Nation­al Plans for gen­der equal­i­ty, the rights of peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties and the improve­ment of the sit­u­a­tion of chil­dren.

In this regard, we call on the Belaru­sian author­i­ties:

• to take effec­tive mea­sures in order to ensure the prop­er pro­tec­tion of human rights and the ful­fil­ment of the inter­na­tion­al human rights oblig­a­tions vol­un­tar­i­ly under­tak­en by Belarus;
• to exclude crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion for polit­i­cal rea­sons;
• to dis­miss all the polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed charges and to release all the polit­i­cal pris­on­ers;
• to stop the per­se­cu­tion of cit­i­zens for the imple­men­ta­tion of their rights and free­doms, guar­an­teed by the nation­al Con­sti­tu­tion and inter­na­tion­al human rights oblig­a­tions.

In par­tic­u­lar, we urge the Belaru­sian author­i­ties to take the fol­low­ing steps:

1. To stop and pre­vent the pres­sure on jour­nal­ists and human rights defend­ers who ful­fil their pro­fes­sion­al duties, and in par­tic­u­lar to remove the ban on the entry of the human rights defend­er Ele­na Tonkache­va; to reg­is­ter the Vias­na Human Rights Cen­tre and oth­er civ­il soci­ety orga­ni­za­tions apply­ing for reg­is­tra­tion, to remove Arti­cle 193.1 of the Crim­i­nal Code;
2. To bring the leg­is­la­tion and prac­tice, reg­u­lat­ing the rights for free­dom of speech, assem­bly, expres­sion and asso­ci­a­tion, in con­for­mi­ty with the inter­na­tion­al stan­dards, with the involve­ment of inter­na­tion­al experts and rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Belaru­sian civ­il soci­ety;
3. To stop pros­e­cu­tion of the defen­dants in the«illegal armed group» case and lead­ers of the inde­pen­dent REP trade union;
4. To intro­duce a mora­to­ri­um on the use of the death penal­ty as the first step towards the com­plete abo­li­tion;
5. To stop the inter­fer­ence of the state with the work of the Bar and to ensure the inde­pen­dence of the Bar both at the lev­el of leg­is­la­tion and in prac­tice;
6. To stop the prac­tice of forced labour; to elim­i­nate the sys­tem of labour ther­a­py detox clin­ics (LTP), as well as the insti­tu­tion of the oblig­at­ed; instead, to focus the efforts on oth­er and non-repres­sive mea­sures for social rein­te­gra­tion of per­sons suf­fer­ing with alco­hol addic­tion;
7. To take com­pre­hen­sive mea­sures to human­ize the crim­i­nal leg­is­la­tion and its enforce­ment;
8. To adopt com­pre­hen­sive anti-dis­crim­i­na­tion leg­is­la­tion and to pre­vent dis­crim­i­na­tion;
9. At the polit­i­cal and prac­ti­cal lev­els, to con­tin­ue mea­sures and actions aimed at the imple­men­ta­tion of the UN Covenant on the Rights of Per­sons with Dis­abil­i­ties;
10. To con­tin­ue efforts to pro­tect the rights of a child; to pro­hib­it tak­ing chil­dren away from their fam­i­lies with­out a court deci­sion;
11. To ensure true equal­i­ty of both state lan­guages in state insti­tu­tions, includ­ing via pub­lish­ing leg­isla­tive acts not only in Russ­ian but also in Belaru­sian;
12. To devel­op a dia­logue with the human rights com­mu­ni­ty; in par­tic­u­lar, to arrange more meet­ings to exchange views and for­mu­late pro­pos­als and rec­om­men­da­tions, as well as con­sul­ta­tions of the gov­ern­ment bod­ies with human rights defend­ers, includ­ing rep­re­sen­ta­tives of unreg­is­tered human rights orga­ni­za­tions, with the assis­tance of the UN and Euro­pean Union mis­sions; to con­tin­ue involv­ing human rights defend­ers in dia­logue process­es, in par­tic­u­lar, with­in the EU-Belarus and US-Belarus dia­logues. The estab­lish­ment of the Pub­lic Advi­so­ry Coun­cil on the imple­men­ta­tion of the Inter-Min­is­te­r­i­al Plan would be an impor­tant step, as well as the fur­ther imple­men­ta­tion of the rec­om­men­da­tions for­mu­lat­ed as part of the UPR and by the UN treaty bod­ies;
13. To spec­i­fy the actions under the Inter-Min­is­te­r­i­al Plan through the adop­tion and pub­li­ca­tion of the rel­e­vant cur­rent plans by the rel­e­vant gov­ern­ment agen­cies, as well as the rel­e­vant progress reports;
14. To ensure the invi­ta­tion of the UN Spe­cial Rap­por­teur on the sit­u­a­tion of human rights in Belarus and the oth­er UN the­mat­ic Spe­cial Rap­por­teurs; to coop­er­ate ful­ly with the UN treaty mech­a­nisms; to ful­fil human rights oblig­a­tions, vol­un­tar­i­ly entered into by the state, includ­ing the imple­men­ta­tion at the nation­al lev­el of the views of the UN Human Rights Com­mit­tee and the oth­er human rights treaty bod­ies;
15. To take mea­sures to imple­ment the OSCE/ODIHR rec­om­men­da­tions as regards reform­ing the elec­toral leg­is­la­tion;
16. To cre­ate a nation­al human rights insti­tu­tion in com­pli­ance with Paris prin­ci­ples.

At the same time, we appeal to the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty and inter­na­tion­al insti­tu­tions, sug­gest­ing the fol­low­ing rec­om­men­da­tions:

1. To keep on focus­ing on the issue of the obser­vance of human rights by Belarus when build­ing the inter­na­tion­al rela­tions between Belarus and oth­er coun­tries, inter­state com­mu­ni­ties and inter­na­tion­al insti­tu­tions.
2. Inter­na­tion­al insti­tu­tions should devel­op and adhere to action plans includ­ing a set of qual­i­ta­tive indi­ca­tors to mea­sure devel­op­ments in the sit­u­a­tion of human rights in Belarus;
3. To con­tin­ue involv­ing rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Belaru­sian human rights orga­ni­za­tions as an impor­tant par­tic­i­pant in the EU-Belarus and US-Belarus dia­logue on human rights and to include them in these process­es as the equal part­ners;
4. To assist in the cre­ation and devel­op­ment of plat­forms for the inter­ac­tion between the state bod­ies and the human rights com­mu­ni­ty of Belarus, with a view to the effec­tive ful­fil­ment of the human rights oblig­a­tions.
5. The OHCHR should step up activ­i­ties at the nation­al lev­el.

We sug­gest that rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the human rights com­mu­ni­ty should:

1. In their activ­i­ties, be guid­ed by the Prin­ci­ples of Human Rights Work in Belarus, based on non-dis­crim­i­na­tion and the uni­ver­sal­i­ty of human rights;
2. Exer­cise pub­lic con­trol and mon­i­tor­ing of the com­pli­ance with the inter­na­tion­al human rights oblig­a­tions entered into by Belarus, pro­vide active assis­tance in the imple­men­ta­tion of these oblig­a­tions and pro­mote the uni­ver­sal human rights val­ues in the Belaru­sian soci­ety;
3. Par­tic­i­pate in the prepa­ra­tion of alter­na­tive reports pre­pared as part of the UN Uni­ver­sal Peri­od­ic Review on Human Rights and for the UN treaty bod­ies;
4. Take joint actions for the pro­tec­tion of human rights, hold human rights cam­paigns and events involv­ing a wide range of human rights orga­ni­za­tions;
5. Pro­mote a human rights based approach in the activ­i­ties of the civ­il soci­ety orga­ni­za­tions, state insti­tu­tions and com­mer­cial orga­ni­za­tions.

Adopt­ed unan­i­mous­ly by the par­tic­i­pants of the 4th Belaru­sian Human Rightd Defend­ers Forum on 21 Octo­ber 2017