News

Commission Starts Negotiations of Visa Facilitation and Readmission Agreements with Belarus

Commission DG for Home Affairs, Stefano Manservisi and Belarus Deputy Foreign Minister Alena Kupchyna met in Brussels to launch the negotiations on Visa Facilitation and Readmission Agreements between the EU and Belarus. Since 2011 the Commission has been regularly reminding of its readiness to launch the negotiations.

The negotiations will focus on agreements to facilitate the procedures for issuing short-stay visas as well as the readmission of irregular migrants between the European Union and Belarus.

Political prisoner Ales Bialiatski could walk free

The political prisoner can be “pardoned” if “it is proved the damage he caused with the tax fraud has been repaid.”

Bialiatski’s book banned in Belarus

Книга политзаключенного может "нанести ущерб имиджу" страны в соответствии с властями.

Another person sentenced to death in Belarus

Belarusian human rights defenders learned that one of the courts in Belarus issued another death penalty. The decision was made on 26 November 2013 in relation to 53-year-old citizen, who was accused of five cases of murder while intoxicated. The convicted has been under investigation since 2011 and during that time he had changed three lawyers.

Андрей Юров: "Когда я слышу о массовых беспорядках в Беларуси, мне хочется сказать: вы, видимо, не видели массовых беспорядков"

Недовольные политикой государства люди существуют во всех странах. Недовольство граждане выражают по-разному: кто-то мирно выходит на улицы, кто-то выражает свой протест путем массовых беспорядков.

Anouncement for position opening of the Representative on the situation of the media and freedom of expression

ANNOUNCEMENT FOR POSITION OPENING

of the Representative on the situation of the media and freedom of expression

of the International Observation Mission
of the Committee on International Control over the Human Rights Situation in Belarus

4th August in the world. Results of the action

Thousands of people around the world joined the International Day of Solidarity with Belarus civil society. Human rights defenders, civil activists, politicians, artists and ordinary citizens from 15 countries of the world took part in actions of solidarity on 4 August.

International Day of Solidarity with Civil Society of Belarus to be held on 4 August

NGOs from different countries of the world announced the International Day of Solidarity with Civil Society of Belarus. It will be held on 4 August, on the second anniversary of the arrest of a well-known Belarusian human rights defender Ales Bialiatski.
The action is created as a demonstration of solidarity with civil society of Belarus and of moral support to human rights defenders and activists, who continue their work in the country, dubbed “Europe’s last dictatorship.”

International Observation Mission in Belarus will appoint the Representative on Human Rights Defenders

The International Observation Mission of the Committee on International Control over the Human Rights Situation in Belarus has announced the opening of the contest for the post of the Representative on Human Rights Defenders.

News of Belarus

Belarus prisoner release: Same old trick

Good news from Belarus is rare, but last weekend president Alexander Lukashenko pardoned six political prisoners.

For the pardoned, all serving multi-year prison terms for challenging Belarus’ autocracy, this is, to say the least, a relief, and has been welcomed by local democrats and the international community.

Lukashenko has declared his decision an act of “humanity”. But is, in fact, a carefully timed tactical move to sway the European Union at a time of growing domestic and geopolitical pressure.

The question is whether he will succeed this time.

The International Day of Solidarity with Belarus 2015

Seven countries around the world celebrated the International Day of Solidarity with Belarus on August the 4th. Human and civil rights activists, as well as other people who are simply sympathetic with the citizens of Belarus and who share deep concern about their future, took part in online discussions, talked to people on the streets and posted various material in social media in order to raise awareness of countless violations of human rights in Belarus.

Solidarity with civil society in Belarus

4 August is an international day of solidarity with the civil society of Belarus. This day matters, because of the daily pressure against civil society in Belarus.

When a coalition of international civil society organisations, at the initiative of the International Youth Human Rights Movement of Voronezh (Russian Federation), launched the idea of an international solidarity day with civil society in Belarus, the country was coming out of the 2010 presidential election cycle, which symbolically ended with the arrest of the country’s leading human rights defender Ales Bialiatski.

The 4 August is key to Belarus, because of Ales Bialiatski’s arrest on this day in 2011. The day is now a symbol of President Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s repeated practice of arbitrary arrest of voices criticising his way of governing the country.

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