Belarus: a month after December 19th. What's next? Press conference

On 19 January 2011, the Belarusian Human Rights House is hosting a press conference on the human rights situation in Belarus. International experts and representatives of human rights organizations from different countries will present their assessment of what is happening in Belarus from the human rights perspective.

When: Wednesday, 19 January 2011, 13:00

Where: Vilnius, Latako str. 3

Host: Belarusian Human Rights House

Contact: ( +370 5 212 7703 )

They also will announce preliminary working results of the International Observation Mission of Committee of international control over the human rights situation in Belarus.

Press conference will be held just after a meeting of NGOs with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania and the participants will present recommendations for the Government of Lithuania, the Presidency of the OSCE.

A month after the presidential election and dispersal of opposition demonstrations in Minsk the information about interrogations, searches in the offices of human rights defenders, journalists and opposition actors continue. Thirty-one people are imprisoned pending trial on charges of organizing riots. The official Minsk continues to build new versions of those events.

One of the reactions of civil society to what is happening was to create a Committee of international control over the human rights situation in Belarus. The International Observation Mission of the Committee, working directly in Minsk, monitors the situation, assists local human rights defenders and covers the events. It consists of people from various NGOs from OSCE countries, replacing each other during work in Mission. The Committee itself includes more than 20 organizations who agreed to join forces for continuous control over the human rights situation and the nomination of joint claims to normalize the situation, including using the mechanisms of the OSCE.

Lithuania became the president of OSCE for 2011, and it underscores important role of the Lithuanian government’s position in changing the situation in Belarus.

The languages of the press conference are English and Russian.

For more information please contact:
[email protected]
https://hrwatch-by.org

News of Belarus

The website charter97.org announced winners of the National Human Rights Award 2014

This year's winners of the Viktar Ivashkevich National Human Rights Award are:

Vasil Parfiankou

The life of Vasil Parfiankou is a demonstration of how dissidents are treated in Belarus. Parfiankou has been jailed three times in the last four years for his active citizenship.

Belarussian political prisoners need European Parliament support

Today, on the occasion of the visit of Ales Bialiatski, a recently released political activist and Chairman of the Belarus Human Rights Centre "Viasna", Petras Auštrevičius MEP (Liberal Movement, Lithuania) and Hans Van Baalen MEP (VVD, Netherlands) commented:

Prominent Belarusian Rights Activist Released

Prominent Belarusian human rights activist Ales Byalyatski has arrived in Minsk after he was released from prison.

He was welcomed at a Minsk train station by his wife Natalya Pinchuk and a group of supporters on June 21.

Byalyatski told reporters he was released under an amnesty law that came into force on June 21. The rights activist also that the domestic and international support he had received heped in getting him released early.