22.01.2009 ODIHR OSCE Director arrives to Minsk

Ambassador Janez Lenarcic, the Director of the OSCE's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), arrives to Minsk on January 22 to discuss recommendations for improvements to Belarus' electoral framework.

21.01.2009 Visiting secretary general of International Trade Union Confederation meets with Belarusian unionists

Guy Rider, secretary general of the International Trade Union Confederation, met with representatives of the pro-government Federation of Trade Unions of Belarus and two independent trade unions in Minsk on Tuesday.

The meeting focused on the need for unity among the country's trade unions, Yaraslaw Yarashuk, chairman of the Belarusian Congress of Trade Unions, told BelaPAN.

21.01.2009 Amnesty International: No positive changes in freedom of speech in Belarus

There were no positive changes in human rights in the last six months in Belarus, the Secretary-General of Amnesty International’s German Section thinks.

Barbara Lochbihler commented on the situation with human rights in Belarus in an interview to Deutsche Welle.

16.01.2009 American lawyers sure US citizen tortured in Belarusian prison

The Washington DC-based Patton Boggs law firm has addressed the UN Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment with a request to investigate the facts of using torture against the American citizen Emmanuil Zeltzer. The firm claims that by detaining Mr.Zeltzer on 12 March 2008 Belarus violated the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Belarusian authorities ‘have tortured Mr. Zeltser by subjecting him to substandard prison conditions and physical beatings, forcing him to undergo a psychiatric evaluation, and jeopardizing his health and life by depriving him of vital physician-prescribed medications and failing to attend to his critical medical needs’.

10.12.2008 Minsk: dispersal of opposition rally near central KGB office

On 10 December youth activists dressed in stripped prison clothing protested near the central office of the State Security Committee (KGB).

02.12.2008 Vitsebsk: human rights activist is not allowed to hold pickets

Pavel Levinau, activist of the Belarusian Helsinki Committee, intended to hold a number of pickets dedicated to the 60th anniversary of the Universal Human Rights Declaration. He addressed Vitsebsk authorities with the request to authorize the actions and received a refusal signed by the deputy head of Vitsebsk city executive committee Pavel Losich.

01.12.2008 Reporters Without Borders call Belarusian authorities not to increase surveillance of Internet

Reporters Without Borders has learned that two independent newspapers that were dropped from official distribution networks for criticizing the government - the weekly Narodnaya Volia and the fortnightly Nasha Niva - yesterday signed contracts that will allow them to appear in the state postal monopoly Belposhta’s newspaper subscription catalogue and to be on sale in the state-owned Belsayuzdruk’s chain of newsstands.

17.11.2008 Leader of “Civil Initiatives” sues Belarusian MFA

Public activist Uladzimer Katsora of Homel went to law demanding decision of the UN Commission on Human Rights on reopening the regional non-governmental organisation “Civil Initiatives” to be fulfilled.

05.11.2008 Father of killed soldier applies to UN

Dweller of Krychau town Alexander Shamryn sent a complaint to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights to defend interest of his family in a dispute with the state.

24.10.2008 Amnesty International representative attempts to meet with heads of law-enforcement ministries

Official representative of the human rights organization Amnesty International Heather McGill will visit Belarus. During the visit she plans to carry out a number of meetings with staff of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Justice, the Supreme Court, and other bodies.

22.10.2008 US won’t lift sanctions against Lukashenka’s regime

The US will alleviate sanctions against Belarus only if the authorities would take further steps for improvement the situation with human rights and development of the civil society.

It has been stated by David Merkel, Deputy Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs at the U.S. Department of State, in an interview to Reuters, BelaPAN informs.

06.08.2008 Committee to Protect Journalists urges President Lukashenka to reconsider repressive media law

The Committee to Protect Journalists is troubled to learn that President Alexander Lukashenko has signed a restrictive new media law, which, according to CPJ research, will allow authorities to further restrict press freedom in Belarus.

11.07.2008 Human Rights Watch calls Prosecutor General to drop charges against Andrei Kim

Human Rights Watch is an international, nonpartisan, nongovernmental human rights organization with offices around the world, including New York, London, Berlin, Geneva, Brussels, Moscow, and Tashkent. Its Europe and Central Asia division has monitored and urged compliance with the human rights provisions of the 1975 Helsinki Accords in signatory countries and with international human rights law since the organization was formed in 1978. We are writing to express our profound concern about the recent arrests and disproportionate sentences of 10 youth activists for participating in a peaceful, but unsanctioned, protest on January 10, 2008. We are especially concerned about Andrei Kim, who is among these ten and who was arrested at a subsequent peaceful protest on January 21. He was charged with violations related to both protests and received a disproportionately harsh sentence for offences based on what we believe to be political reasons.

10.07.2008 Brest: Yury Bakur complains to UN Human Rights Committee

Mr. Bakur decided to apply to the UN Human Rights Committee after going through all court instances of Belarus with complaints against the verdict of Maskouski district court of Brest, by which he had been fined 93 000 rubles (about $43).

10.07.2008 Belarusian Helsinki Committee becomes a partner of the Council of Europe

On 10 July the office of the Belarusian Helsinki Committee received the information that the Council of Europe has granted to it the status of a partner, thereby acknowledging the working relations which have been established between it and BHC.