The Human Rights Center “Viasna”

News for 18 Dec 2013

18.12.2013 Action Required: Support Freelance Journalists in Belarus

The European Fedeartion of Journalists supports BAJ's efforts aimed at introducing a legal status for freelance journalists in the Belarusian media law.

18.12.2013 Authorities ban picket to support EuroMaidan

Pickets of solidarity with Ukrainians were banned in several Belarusian towns.

18.12.2013 Independent weekly in Slonim faces eviction

The company “Partner-Slonim Ltd.”, which owns the premises rented by a local independent weekly, Hazeta Slonimskaya, requests that the office should be vacated by January 1, 2014, the press-service of the Belarusian Association of Journalists reports.

18.12.2013 Ales Makajeu will be put on trial

The entrepreneur will be put on trial for an event of Slutsk Military Rebellion’s commemoration.

18.12.2013 Information about torture in KGB jail is “state secret”

Upon release from the KGB detention center in March 2011 former presidential candidate Ales Mikhalevich reported numerous facts of abuse and torture, and filed a complaint with the Prosecutor’s Office urging the officials to investigate the allegations.

18.12.2013 Nabeel Rajab wrote to Ales Bialiatski

From Jaw prison in Bahrain, Nabeel Rajab wrote to Ales Bialiatski, FIDH Vice-President, who has been imprisoned for more than 2 years in Belarus.

18.12.2013 Brest authorities ban march in support of Ukraine's pro-EU protest

The organizers of the march were local representatives of the United Civil Party, who were going to express their solidarity with the Ukrainian people in their desire to live in the European Union.

18.12.2013 Hrodna: another BAJ member warned by Prosecutor

On December 17, Andrei Mialeshka, Hrodna member of the Belarusian Association of Journalists, was summoned to the city’s Prosecutor's Office. The journalist was questioned by Deputy Division Chief of Hrodna Regional Prosecutor’s Office Valery Paviadaika. It concerned a report on the site of the Belarusian Radio Racyja under the pseudonym Ihar Mikalayeu that covered a memorial action held on October 27 to mark the anniversary of the 1863 anti-Russian uprising.

18.12.2013 Raman Kisliak: Ales Charkashyn’s case will be continued

They had to release Ales Charkashyn, says human rights activist from Brest Raman Kisliak. The BCD activist was to be tried at 9:00. However, he was not taken to the court building an hour later, and then it became known that he was released because the judge did not consider the case due to inaccuracies in the record of the offense.