“Ales Bialiatski's Case” presented in Moscow
A round table and a
photo exhibition were held on the Day of Solidarity with Belarusian
civil society in Moscow. The participants of these events also signed
postcards in support of the human rights activist Ales Bialiatski,
who was arrested two years ago.
The action, held on the
territory of the Moscow design factory “Flacon”, was attended by
about 50 people – human rights activists from the International
Observation Mission on human rights in Belarus, the Youth Human
Rights Movement, political scientists, journalists, students and
representatives of the Belarusian diaspora in Moscow.
In the
beginning of the event, journalist of Radio “Liberty” Valery
Kalinouski presented the book "Bialiatski's Case",
published in the series "Library of Liberty". The author
told the story of its creation, read
an excerpt from the chapter about the arrest of Ales Bialiatski and
the last letter of the Babruisk
prison:
“So far, almost everything is
basically the old way. It will soon be two
years sing the beginning of my
"study in the
people's university”.
After my first year a friend of mine, human
rights activist from St. Petersburg, wrote
that the time will go faster after the first year.
She was right. Indeed,
the second year went much faster than the first. Well and good. It
was troublesome, but for me it was not wain.
Surprisingly, I don't feel
out of place," wrote Ales on 23
July.
During the
public debate on the topic "Will Russia become
Belarus?" there
were a lot of comparisons of the situation in Belarus and Russia and
evaluations of the reaction of the international community to the
events in their countries and the way toimprove the the ways to
influence the situation of human rights in both countries.
A
member of the Human Rights Council under the President of Russia,
head of the
International Observation Mission on human rights in Belarus Andrey
Yurov spoke about the
experience of his
mission, which includes human rights activists from the countries of
the CIS. The mission
monitored the most critical events in Belarus after December, 2010,
raised their voices in
protest, and continues its monitoring of the situation in
Belarus:
"We will not stop out
activities, at least untill human rights
violations stop, Ales Bialiatski gets
out of
prison, becomes the
Ombudsman in Belarus
and asks us to dissolve,"
said Mr. Yurov.
Many
activists of the mission (more than
10 people), including
its leaders Andrey Yurov and Yury
Jibladze, are still
banned entrance to Belarus.
The head of
the independent
research center "Freedom Fails" Olga Zakharova spoke about
the current negative role of Russia as a unifier of non-democratic
regimes that have tried to return the world to the state
before the Helsinki Agreement. These agreement
was reached in 1975,
putting human rights
above state sovereignty.
Representatives
of the Belarusian emigrant circles in
Moscow spoke of the need to respect the democratic forces of
Russia to preservation of the independence
of Belarus, the revival of its language and culture.
The
human rights photo exhibition of Belarusian authors “Solidarity is
stronger than repression” was held as a part
of the Day of Solidarity.
