The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders and Viasna demanded the release of their colleagues
The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders (FIDH-OMCT) and Viasna Human Rights Center issued a joint statement on the third anniversary of the detention of Viasna members Uladzimir Labkovich, Ales Bialiatski, and Valiantsin Stefanovic. Organizations once again called on the Belarusian authorities to immediately and unconditionally release imprisoned human rights defenders in Belarus.
The Observatory and Viasna are particularly alarmed about the appalling conditions in which Ales Bialiatski, Valiantsin Stefanovic and Uladzimir Labkovich are being held. Recently, it became known that Ales Bialiatski is systematically denied contact with his relatives, who only sporadically receive short letters from him. Likewise, Ales apparently does not receive letters and parcels from outside, including parcels with medical supplies, which the prison administration refuses to accept on his behalf. In November 2023, Ales was placed in a cell-type space (PKT) for approximately six months, from which he was released in April or May 2024, and is now forced to do exhausting work in a woodworking factory. His state of health remains unknown.
This is congruent with the findings of the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Belarus. In her latest report published in May 2024, she stated that “inmates convicted on politically motivated charges reportedly wear a special yellow mark, have arbitrary restrictions on communication with families and lawyers imposed on them, are frequently transferred to ‘punitive isolation cells’ (SHIZO) and ‘cell-type spaces’ (PKT), notorious for inhuman detention conditions, where they find themselves in solitary confinement and incommunicado detention”, as “disciplinary sanctions for petty and far-fetched transgressions of penitentiary rules”.
The statement says that the Observatory and Viasna strongly condemn the unlawful imprisonment of Ales Bialiatski, Valiantsin Stefanovic and Uladzimir Labkovich, and urge the Belarusian authorities to quash their sentences and to immediately and unconditionally release them. The Observatory and Viasna further urge the Belarusian authorities to immediately and unconditionally release unlawfully imprisoned Viasna members Marfa Rabkova and Andrey Chapiuk, as well as all other human rights defenders and prisoners in Belarus convicted under politically motivated charges.
The organisations underline that the politically motivated, arbitrary and severe harassment and ill-treatment of human rights defenders and political prisoners in general in Belarusian prisons needs to stop immediately, and urge the Belarusian authorities to respect all their international human rights obligations.
The Observatory and Viasna also urge the international community to use all available measures to ensure that justice, accountability and reparations are provided to all human rights defenders arbitrarily imprisoned.
