Authorities ignored suit of relatives of abducted oppositionists
5- 18.11.2009, 15:45
On November 16 the term when they were to react to the suit of the Krasouskis family to the UN expired.
We remind that on November 16, 2008 the suit was registered by the UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances on behalf of Anatol, Iryna and Valery Krasouski, and its copy was sent to the defendant, the Republic of Belarus, the press-service of “We Remember” foundation informs.
The date for answer was initially set for May 16, 2009. However, instead of an answer, Belarusian authorities sent a demand to translate the suit in Russian (the document was prepared in English). Thus, the government received 6 additional months to prepare an answer to complainants. However, there was no answer on time.
According to procedures of the UN Human Rights Committee, when the state –defendant does not answer the suit of the complainant on time, a reminder is sent. If the defendant does not respond to the reminder, the UN Human Rights Committee considers the case disregarding the opinion of the defendant.
The suit of Krasouski family was prepared by a lawyer company from the Netherlands; the document consists of 100 and has a supplement of 26 documents with more than one thousand pages. In their own name and on behalf of Anatol Krasouski, who was forcibly abducted on September 16, 1999, Iryna and Valerya Krasouskaya call upon the state of Belarus:
1) To immediately interrogate suspects in forcible abductions of Anatol Krasouski named in the Special Memorandum of the deputy of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe Christos Pourgourides;
2) To satisfy numerous requests of Anatol Krasouski’s family and international community to hold thorough investigation of Anatol Krasouski’s disappearance;
3) To identify and tell the name of Anatol Krasouski’s burial;
4) To compensate moral and material damages of Anatol Krasouski’s abduction’s victims.
According to Krasouski family’s suit, the state of Belarus has violated items 6, 7, 9 and 10 of the International Pact on Civil and Political Rights. The suit has been submitted according to the Facultative protocol to the International Pact on Civil and Political Rights, which is the last and practically the only international document signed by Belarus which obliges it to bear responsibility for the crimes against its own citizens.
We remind that in 1999–2000, Viktar Hanchar, first vice speaker of the 13th Supreme Council of Belarus and head of the Central Electoral Commission; businessman and public figure Anatol Krasouski; former interior minister and opposition politician Yury Zakharanka; ORT TV channel camera operator Zmitser Zavadski disappeared in Belarus. Nothing is known about the fate of these people.
The international community calls to find out further fate of the disappeared Belarusian oppositionists. Resolutions of UN Human Rights Commission, Parliamentary Assemblies of the Council of Europe and the OSCE urge to reveal the truth about the disappearances.
A number of Belarusian high-ranking officials, in particular minister of internal affaires Uladzimir Navumau, head of the president’s administration Viktar Sheiman, former minister of internal affaires Yury Sivakou, and former commander of special task squad Dzmitry Paulichenka are banned from entry into the EU countries and the US, because they are suspected of involvement in kidnapping of the oppositionists.
