Law machinery wouldn’t discuss beatings of participants of mass actions

Belarusian human rights activists planned to discuss illegitimate repressive actions against civil society with regime representatives.

Activists of human rights organizations (Legal Information Centre, Viasna, Solidarity committee, the Belarusian Helsinki Committee, the Belarusian House of Human Rights and the Belarusian Association of Journalists) invited representatives of law-enforcing agencies of Belarus to a meeting in order to discuss coercive actions against participants of mass rallies held in February. Members of the Union of Poles were invited to the meeting as well.

The aim of the event was to ‘find ways to normalize activities of law-enforcing agencies and administration of the law during mass peaceful rallies’.

As informed by RFE/RL, the meeting was scheduled for 19 February in Europe Hotel at 11 a.m. however on 18 February in the evening the administration of the hotel denied premises to the organizers of the event.

Despite this, on 19 February human rights activists gathered near the hotel expecting at least any of the officials to arrive. Predictably, no representatives of authorities came to the meeting.