23.03.2010 Viasna’s activists detained

Four members of the Human Rights Center Viasna Ales Bialiatski, Valiantsin Stefanovich, Iryna Toustsik and Siarhei Sys were detained by the police while staging a picket against the execution of Andrei Zhuk and Vasil Yuzepchuk in front of the Presidential Administration building in Minsk.

23.03.2010 Council of Europe condemns executions in Belarus

The Council of Europe strongly condemns the execution of Andrei Zhuk and of Vasily Yuzepchuk in Belarus. Death penalty is barbaric and degrading, and this is why it has been abolished by the Council of Europe through Protocol 6 to the European Convention on Human Rights. The authorities of Belarus are the only remaining ones in Europe who execute people.

23.03.2010 ‘Administrative itch’ of Orsha officials

Orsha town executive committee passed an unprecedented decision on the authorized canvassing locations in the town, specifying separate sites for each of the 30 constituencies. According to the local leaders of pro-democratic political parties, the decision is ‘an administrative itch’ of the town authorities, obsessed with controlling each and every turn of the electoral campaign.

23.03.2010 Canvassing allowed near death care store in Mahiliou

Mahiliou city executive committee released a list of canvassing locations, with only one site available for public electoral events, making an unfortunate ‘misprint’ in the building’s address – the decision names 64 Chaliuskintsau (a 4-storied block of flats adjoined by the local death care service), instead of 64A Chaliuskintsau (traditional place of authorized street events in the Kuibyshev Artificial Fiber Factory Palace of Culture).

23.03.2010 No electoral competition in Homel region

According to preliminary data, there will be no competition in local council elections in Homel region, with 2,933 candidates to contest 2,898 seats in village constituencies, 156 candidates claiming 146 seats of town councils and the 30/30 ratio in urban constituencies.

23.03.2010 CEC sees no electoral violations in Hrodna

No violations were made during the formation of the divisional election commissions in Hrodna Leninski and Kastrychnitski districts, says Lidzia Yarmoshyna, chair of the Central Election Commission in her official reply to a complaint by local human rights activist Raman Yurhel, after the local state-owned newspaper Hrodzenskaya prauda published information on the composition of the commissions 8 days after the respective decisions were taken.

23.03.2010 Viasna and BHC’s statement on execution of Zhuk and Yuzepchuk

Administration of pre-trial prison № 1 refused to take food, brought for Andrey Zhuk by his mother, and informed her, that death sentences, passed on her son and Vasilij Uzepchuk in summer, 2009, were carried out.

The authorities cynically ignored the demands of the Belarusian human rights defenders and The UN Human Rights Committee not to execute the condemned, while their appeals were considered in the Committee.

23.03.2010 Belarus carries out two executions

Amnesty International is calling on the President of Belarus Alyaksandr Lukashenka to establish an immediate moratorium on the use of the death penalty after it was revealed two men were executed at the end of last week.