Uladzimir Labkovich: KGB has long stopped taking care of national security

The state security committee (KGB) deals exceptionally with political persecution.

A member of the Council of the human rights center Viasna Uladzimir Labkovich shared such an opinion with the charer97.org web-site as he commented on the Belarusian ruler’s broadening KGB’s competences.

“Based on the Constitution of the Republic of Belarus, and the law on the president of Belarus lawyers, legal specialists and human rights activists, politicians and civic activists have repeatedly claimed that the power is distributed absolutely disproportionally in the country. But, based on the law, which is in force in Belarus, signing a resolution on the state security committee is a president’s competence. That is why it was Lukashenka, who signed this document”, - the lawyer noted.

He highlighted that the problem is first of all not in the resolution, but in the law on KGB.

“This resolution is in no way different from the law on the state security committee, it directly follows it and is, in essence, its continuation. As to this law, it was fiercely criticized by human rights activists. Especially the changes that were introduced in 2011, when the so-called anti-revolutionary changes were adopted to the law on mass events, to the Criminal Code and also to the law on state security. State security bodies have been empowered with practically unlimited competences and have been even put beyond the formal control of prosecutor’s office”, - Uladzimir Labkovich claimed.

He added that because of that human rights activists believe that by fact and legally KGB remains the main punitive body, which does not deal with state security, but exceptionally with political persecution.

“As to the paragraph on the normative establishment of KGB’s competence to provide top-level CIS officials with the services of governmental phone lines, and also the introduction of the norms, establishing the order of composition and activities of the KGB board, those are the security functions for high-level guests, coming to Belarus. Secondly, probably, those are interdepartmental agreements, which exist between KGB and the special services of the CIS countries, Collective Security Treaty Organization and other international associations, which Belarus is a member of”, - the human rights activist summed up.

We would remind that on 24 July the Belarusian ruler signed a decree, establishing the resolution on the state security committee and a list of military units and other organizations, submitted to KGB.