The Human Rights Center “Viasna”

News for November 2010

11.11.2010 Salihorsk: will they find chair for observer this time?

The Salihorsk Town Executive Committee published the ruling On the formation of precinct election commissions Most of the commissions consist of workers of the institutions and enterprises on the territory of which the appropriate polling stations are situated, and are usually headed by their bosses at work. For instance, the schoolmistress of secondary school #9 Halina Shauchenka was nominated to PEC #1 by the Belarusian Union of Women. The PEC consists of workers of school #9 who were nominated to the commission in different ways: by collection of signatures of electors, by the labor collective of the school or by different public associations.

11.11.2010 Central Election Commission approves secrecy during verification of signatures

The Central Election Commission dismissed a complaint of the observer of the Belarusian Helsinki Committee Leanid Markhotka.

11.11.2010 Results of verification of signatures (continued)

According to the information of the Vitsebsk Region Election Commission, the following pretenders for presidency have more than 20 thousand of valid signatures in the Vitsebsk region:

11.11.2010 Ministry of Health hushes up truth about radiation in Belarus

The Ministry of Health refused to give information about the level of the internal absorbed dose of radiation for the year of 2009.

11.11.2010 New election-related trials

The Kastrychnitski and the Pershamaiski district courts of Vitsebsk dismissed the complaints against the non-inclusion of 17 representatives of the Belarusian Leftist party Fair World in precinct election commissions.

11.11.2010 Drybin: district election commission refuses to give information to journalist

The journalist of the socio-political newspaper Uzgorak Halina Budnaya spent several days trying to obtain the information about the number of the signatures in support of each pretender for presidency that had been passed to the Drybin District Election Commission.

11.11.2010 Interesting information about staff of election commissions

The precinct commissions of Pinsk consist mainly of representatives of the labor collectives of the enterprises where the commissions are situated. Such conclusion can be made after looking through the lists of the PEC members that were uploaded to the website www.pinsk.by. For instance, here we draw the list of members of PEC #57, 12 out of 13 members of which are workers of different department of a branch republican enterprise Brestenerha – the Pinsk electricity supply networks who were nominated to the PEC by the labor collective of the enterprise, and the 13th - is also a worker of the Pinsk electricity supply networks who was nominated to the commission by the Belarusian Republican Youth Union.

11.11.2010 Information about results of verification of signatures in Belarusian regions (continued)

The Maskouski and the Leninski district election commissions of Brest finished the verification of signatures in support of the nomination of candidates for President of Belarus. According to the preliminary information, the commissions didn’t annul signatures in support of any candidates except for Uladzimir Pravalski.

10.11.2010 Vitsebsk: human rights defender appeals non-inclusion in precinct commission

Pavel Levinau had been nominated to PEC #35 in Vitsebsk by about 150 residents of Vitsebsk, but hadn’t been included in it. Mr. Levinau discovered a number of violations of the electoral legislation during the formation of the commission.

10.11.2010 Vitsebsk: police hold check-up concerning forgery of signatures by campaign team of Uladzimir Pravalski

The Pershamaiski District Election Commission received the greatest number of signatures in support of Uladzimir Pravalski – more than 100,000. According to the official information of the commission, the signature sheets that were passed to it by the campaign team don’t look as real even at first look. That’s why they were passed to the Pershamaiski District Police Department of Vitsebsk that holds a check-up. The police experts have already discovered that a part of the signature sheets had been produced with the use of Xerox.

10.11.2010 Slonim: newspaper predicts results of election

The newspaper of the Slonim District Executive Committee Slonimski Vesnik didn’t write anything about the collection of signatures for the nomination of presidential candidates. However, on 10 November it suddenly published as many as three articles in the column Election-2010 in its front page.

10.11.2010 Shklou: observer visited by police

In the morning of 9 November the police paid a visit to the apartment of the observer at the Shklou District Election Commission Mikhail Kucharenka. They were trying to figure out why Mikhail Kucharenka and other publica activists from the Shklou district were collecting signatures against the transfer of local water bodies to private entrepreneurs this summer.

10.11.2010 Mikalai Dziadok holds on

The investigation into the criminal case against the student of the European Humanities University Mikalai Dziadok was extended for six months, and the term of his keeping in custody – for five months. So far Mikalai Dziadok has been given charges under Article 339, part 2 – ‘hooligan actions conducted by a group of individuals’.

10.11.2010 Gender misbalance in Hrodna PECs

A detailed analysis of the composition of the precinct election commissions of Hrodna shows a great prevalence of women. For instance, there are 779 people in the 66 PECs of the Leninski district of Hrodna, 557 (74%) of which are women. Some commissions consist solely of women: PEC ##31, 35, 52, 57 and 58. There is just one man in each of the following commissions: PEC#6, 9, 14, 17, 27, 30, 34, 39 and 54. A similar situation is observed in the PECs of the Kastrychnitski district of Hrodna.

10.11.2010 Biaroza: not all members of district election commission are trusted to verify signatures

On 8 November the Biaroza District Election Commission held a sitting to announce the results of the verification of the signatures in support of the potential presidential candidates. As it follows from the voiced information, the signatures were verified by just 6 members of the election commission: Ya.Kashtalian, V.Kuzmin, H.Muratava, A.Nelipovich, A.Pralich and M.Redzko.