EU Special Representative for Human Rights meets with Belarusian human rights activists

The Minsk office of the Human Rights Center “Viasna” hosted yesterday a meeting of representatives of a number of Belarusian human rights organizations with Mr. Stavros Lambrinidis, EU Special Representative for Human Rights, as well as Ms. Andrea Wiktorin, head of the EU Delegation in Minsk, and the EU Mission’s employee on political issues Ms. Renata Wrobel.

Belarusian human rights organizations were represented by Aleh Hulak, chairman of the Belarusian Helsinki Committee, Volha Smalianka, director of the Center for Legal Transformation, Natallia Mankouskaya, head of the Identity Human Rights NGO, Tatsiana Aheyeva, deputy head of the Belarusian Documentation Center, and Valiantsin Stefanovich, deputy chairman of the HRC “Viasna”.

Following the meeting, the human rights defenders noted that they managed to discuss both the current situation with human rights in Belarus and a much broader range of issues.

In early February, Mr. Lambrinidis met in Brussels with Zhanna Litvina, representative of the Belarusian Association of Journalists, and Ales Bialiatski, chairman of the HRC "Viasna", who, in the light of the resumption of a human rights dialogue between Belarus and the EU, presented a coordinated position of human rights defenders on the priorities in determining the strategy of cooperation of international partners with Belarus, which was signed by the majority of the participants in yesterday's event.

The meeting was held as part of the Special Representative’s working visit to Minsk from 8 to 11 March. Today, he is expected to take part in the International Conference on the Death Penalty, which was organized by the UN Office in Belarus with the support of the British Embassy in Minsk.