The Human Rights Center “Viasna”

Artur Finkevich, leader of the Young Belarus unregistered organization, is going to lodge a complaint with the Ministry of Defense against lieutenant-colonel Aliaksandrau, deputy commander of military unit 29 where his friend and oppositional activist Ivan Shyla is currently serving. The activist says the military official abused his national dignity by illegally denying meeting with Ivan Shyla. ‘Lieutenant-colonel Aliaksei Aliaksandrau ordered that we spoke Russian,’ says Mr.Finkevich.

On 5 July the police accompanied by several plainclothes persons broke up an educational summer camp organized by the Right-Wing Alliance opposition organization outside the town of Bobr, Krupki region. The youngsters were ordered to leave the place under threat of arrest.

The authorities in Belarus continue to ignore international pressure on them to declare a moratorium on the death penalty, Amnesty International and the Belarusian Helsinki Committee, said today. The two organizations have just learnt that the Brest regional court sentenced a 30-year-old man to death on 29 June.

The sentence was pronounced less than a week after the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly voted on 23 June in favour of restoring the Special Guest status to the Parliament of Belarus on the condition that Belarus declares a moratorium on the execution of the death penalty.

HRH Network has joined the campaign “No to Article 193.1!” The campaign is headed by the NGO Assembly and its goal is to force cancellation of the article 193.1 of the Belarusian Criminal Code.