Belarus Pressebild

Gunnar Wiegand, a senior official of the European Union’s European External Action Service, arrived in Belarus on February 8 to "establish a European dialogue on modernization with representatives of civil society and the political opposition." Gunnar WiegandMr.

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The mother of the death convict submitted their arguments to the commentaries provided to the UN Human Rights Committee by the Belarusian authorities in connection with the individual communication submitted to the organization on his behalf.

In January Anatol Sanatsenka, chief editor of the private socio-political newspaper “Babruiski Kur’yer”, filed an appeal with the procuracy, in which he asked to explain the frequent visits of the police to local civil activists and the existence of the so-called “black list” of activists and journalists. He also stated that police officers posed threats to him in connection with his refusal to be fingerprinted.

On 8 February the Court of Baranavichy City and District considered the criminal case against Aliaksandr Vaitseshyk. Judge N. Harbarchyk found him guilty under Article 364 for alleged infliction of bodily harm to a police officer and sentenced him to 18 months of conditional imprisonment.

Late in the evening of 8 February 2012 all 32 people detained in the Protestant Church “Ian the Baptist” were released from the Maskouski District Police Department of Minsk. Among them there were three under-aged – Vitaut Siuchyk and his schoolmates Kasia and Maryna.

This document was prepared by the Human Rights Center "Viasna" on the basis of monitoring of the criminal proceedings against its Chairman Ales Bialiatski.

Slovak Prime Minister Iveta Radicova has nominated the jailed Belarusian rights activist Ales Bialiatski for the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize.

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Germany’s human rights commissioner says Belarus has blocked his plans to visit the country and meet with a jailed human rights activist.

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The head of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Eamon Gilmore, applied to the Belarusian authorities for a permission to resume the work of the organisation office in Minsk.

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The cars of those who have stickers with the national emblem “Pahonia” (which used to be the state coat of arms of Belarus before Lukashenka’s rule) are photographed. The owners are summonsed to the police and threatened with fines for violation of Article 194.13 of traffic rules in the case they don’t remove the stickers.

Heorhi Stankevich, the editor of the small-circulation newspaper “Kryvinka” applied to the court with the request to review the administrative case according to which he had been fined by the Beshankovichy District Court.

By Anton Taras
Translated by the ODB
This article was initially published on www.naviny.by on 6 February 2012

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The initiative voiced by the ODB to fine-tune the criteria of applying the EU visa ban lists to Belarusian officials spread a wide discussion in Belarusian electronic media including Nikolai Khalezin and 'Charter 97', who presented it through the mixture of distorted evidence and unfounded accusations, all shaped in the most inappropriate way.

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We propose to review the list of the 'banned' individuals carefully. The list may need to be extended to include new names, but the underpinning criteria should be treated with caution.

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By George Plashchinski

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The European Union Delegation issues the following statement in agreement with the EU Heads of Mission in Minsk.

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On 6 February, three activists of the European Belarus opposition movement were expelled from Minsk State Linguistic University, following their conviction for involvement in a series of rallies of solidarity with Belarusian political prisoners.

Eighteen mass events have been banned by Salihorsk town authorities since the beginning of the year alone, with six more pickets banned on 2 February, local human rights defender Uladzimir Shyla says.

On 6 February, Babruisk resident Artsiom Markhasiou received an official ruling by Mahiliou Regional Court on his appeal against a 700,000-fine for alleged violation of the Mass Events Code requirements of 22 December.