10.11.2008 Polatsk: youth activists to stand trial for anti-communist action

Reports were drawn up against Polatsk youth activists for they unfurled a national white-red-white flag and an orange flag of the initiative Young Belarus in the city center.

06.11.2008 Interrogation of ‘Young Front’ members

It looks like a new criminal case against members of Polatsk branch of ‘Young Front’ is being prepared.

05.11.2008 Brest: procuracy does not grant Yauhen Skrabets’ complaint

Recently the democratic activist Yauhen Skrabets has complained to the procuracy of Maskouski district of Brest about unlawful confiscation of printed editions, DVD disks and a computer hard drive during a search in his parents’ apartment.

28.10.2008 New political prisoner appeared in Belarus

Statement of the Human Rights Center Viasna in conjunction with the arrest of Alexander Barazenka

28.10.2008 “Process of the Fourteen”: new political prisoner

On Monday, October 27th, youth activist Alexander Barazenka was put in Valadarskaha detention center. The young man is one of the figures in the criminal case for the entrepreneurs’ rally on January 10th.

Let us remind you, the case received an unofficial name of the “Process of the Fourteen”. However, only thirteen people appeared in the dock. Student of Wroclaw University Alexander Barazenka decided to stay in Poland and not to come for the trial.

13.10.2008 Law machinery to conceal information about criminal cases

According to a new ruling mass media would not be able to receive information about celebrated criminal cases without written permission of the judge who tries it. As written in the Yurist magazine, the general procuracy, the State Control Committee, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, KGB and the Ministry of Justice have determined the order of informing mass media about celebrated criminal cases and the crimes that ‘undermine the authority of the state power’.

28.09.2008 Kalinkavichy: Pressurization of observers continues

On 26 September an observer from the Belarusian Helsinki Committee Dzianis Rabianok has been summonsed to Kalinkavichy district procuracy. There he was familiarized with a criminal case under Article 9.10 (violation of the electoral laws) that was brought against him. The formal reason for the case was an ‘application from citizens of Yelsk. Mr. Rabianok was not explained what he was charged with. He lives in Kalinkavichy and is an observer at electoral commission #41.

04.09.2008 ‘Case of 14’: personal restraint or home arrest?

This year 14 persons were accused of organization of mass riot at the protest action of entrepreneurs which was held on 21 January. One of them, Andrei Kim, was also accused of threatening with violence to a policeman and was sentenced to 1,5 years of jail. Two more, Anton Koipish and Uladzimir Siarheyeu, were punished with fines. One person remains abroad and therefore still has not received any punishment. The rest of the 14 were sentenced to different terms of personal restraint.

07.08.2008 Vitsebsk: journalists are interrogated in criminal case on threat letters from Russian neo-Nazi

On 7 August an independent journalist Aliona Stsiapanava was summonsed to the KGB and interrogated as a witness on a criminal case that had been brought on threat letters sent by activists of an unregistered Russian neo-Nazi organization RNE (Russian National Unity). The investigator asked Stsiapanava where and when she had seen such letters and what human rights organizations she knew.

07.08.2008 Brest oblast: oppositionists still interrogated in ‘Minsk blast’ case

When Alexander Chorny, the first secretary of Kobryn town committee of the Party of Communists of Belarusian, signed out of the hospital he was visited by police officers who brought a ‘questioning blank’ with them.

04.08.2008 Asipovichy: Artsiom Dubski gets arrested

Artsiom Dubski, one of the Young Front leaders, was arrested in Asipovichy and guarded to the police department handcuffed.

11.07.2008 Human Rights Watch calls Prosecutor General to drop charges against Andrei Kim

Human Rights Watch is an international, nonpartisan, nongovernmental human rights organization with offices around the world, including New York, London, Berlin, Geneva, Brussels, Moscow, and Tashkent. Its Europe and Central Asia division has monitored and urged compliance with the human rights provisions of the 1975 Helsinki Accords in signatory countries and with international human rights law since the organization was formed in 1978. We are writing to express our profound concern about the recent arrests and disproportionate sentences of 10 youth activists for participating in a peaceful, but unsanctioned, protest on January 10, 2008. We are especially concerned about Andrei Kim, who is among these ten and who was arrested at a subsequent peaceful protest on January 21. He was charged with violations related to both protests and received a disproportionately harsh sentence for offences based on what we believe to be political reasons.

10.07.2008 Cassation complaint on the ‘case of 14’ is to be considered on 22 July

The cassation complaint concerns 10 of the 13 tried activists and will be considered by Minsk cit court on 22 July.

10.07.2008 Five persons are arrested in connection with Minsk blast

Many electronic mass media continue informing that four former activists of the underground organization White Legion, Siarzhuk Chyslau, Ihar Korsak, Miraslau Lazouski and Viktar Liashchynski, have been arrested within the frames of the criminal case which has been brought on the fact of the bomb blast during the official concert in the night of 3-4 July.

12.06.2008 Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders expresses its grave concern with persecution of Leanid Svetsik

The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, a joint programme of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), requests your urgent intervention in the following situation in *Belarus*.