The Human Rights Center “Viasna”

Amnesty International’s office in Berlin held an action in support of a campaign for the abolition of the death penalty in Belarus.

On 24 April Ihar Shalai was detained near the building of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Minsk for posting stickers “No to death penalty!” and guarded to the Savetski District Police Department by two police officers.

Vitsebsk police attempted to prevent Russian journalists from interviewing the mother of Uladzislau Kavaliou, executed in March on charges of plotting a terrorist attack in Minsk underground back in April 2011.

Liubou Kavaliova, mother of death convict Uladzislau Kavaliou, and his sister, Tatsiana Kaziar, have received official information from the Office of the Supreme Commissioner for Human Rights. This information had been passed to it by representatives of the Belarusian government at the UN Geneva office on 15 March 2012 – the day when Uladzislau Kavaliou had been executed by shooting.

Civil organization "Young Front", officially registered in the Czech Republic, addressed all members of the Chamber of Representatives of the National Assembly of Belarus with the demand to initiate a voting on introducing a death penalty moratorium in Belarus.

Additional information concerning the case of death convict Uladzislau Kavaliou was submitted to the UN Human Rights Committee by his mother and sister, Liubou Kavaliova and Tatsiana Kaziar.

Countries that carried out executions in 2011 did so at an alarming rate but those employing capital punishment have decreased by more than a third compared to a decade ago, Amnesty International found in its annual review of death sentences and executions.