Belarusian authorities refuse to investigate cases on kidnapping
5- 15.11.2010, 11:43
Uladzimir Lemesh, an activist of European Belarus civil campaign, lodged a complained to the UN Human Rights Committee.
Uladzimir Lemesh accuses the Belarusian authorities of kidnapping and unfair court practice.
“The reason for my complaint to the Human Rights Committee was the fact of refusal of prosecutors to initiate a criminal case over my kidnapping by persons in police uniform,” the activist told the European Belarus website.
Lemesh hopes the Committee will admit the state violated his rights and deliver an appropriate ruling.
“The Committee’s decision is important for me, because it may have an influence on the Belarusian authorities and make them stop this cruel practice of harassment of opposition activists,” the activist thinks.
“It’s a tendency of the recent years that more and more citizens of Belarus apply to the Human Rights Committee due to impossibility to defend their rights in national courts. Belarus is the third in the number of appeals registered in the Committee. In Uladzimir’s case, we have used all means of national legal defense, but a criminal case over kidnapping hasn’t been initiated, so we have to apply to the Committee,” human rights activist Syarhei Ustsinau explains.
We remind that in November 2009, Uladzimir Lemesh was caught by persons in police uniform in Minsk center. He was forced into a minibus without registration numbers. He was handcuffed, taken out of Minsk, and warned to stop his opposition activity.
Several loud cases of kidnapping were recorded in Belarus at the end of the last year. Young Front leader Zmitser Dashkevich, coordinator of European Belarus Yauhen Afnahel, European Belarus activist Uladzimir Lemesh, Young Belarus leader Artur Finkevich were kidnapped in Mink during a few days. In March 2009, the same happened to Young Front activists Nasta Palazhanka and Dzyanis Karnou. Unknown people forced the oppositionists into cars, took them out of Minsk, seized their belonging, left in desolated places, beat them and threatened with bodily harm.
Though the young people applied to the prosecutor’s office and even identify one of the kidnappers, officer of Almaz special police division Alyaksandr Lyavonenka, in pictures in the media, the authorities in fact refuse to investigate the kidnappings.
