Young oppositionists reported to OSCE Hans-Johan Schmidt

The “Young Front” organisation has addressed the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office Dora Bakoyannis wit ha request to give a legal treatment of the actions of the Belarusian OSCE office’s head.

The cause for the open address was a secret visit of German legal expert Martin Finke to Minsk. On request of the OSCE Office in Belarus he carries out a legal examination on the case of Vaukavysk entrepreneurs: Yury Lyavonau, Mikalai Autukhovich and Uladzimir Asipenka.

The Young Front has sent the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office Dora Bakoyannis the following letter:

“The Belarusian youth movement the Young Front addresses you with a request to give a legal evaluation of actions of the OSCE office head Hans-Johan Schmidt.

This month Martin Finke, Professor, expert on criminal law and law of criminal procedure in Eastern European countries, has visited Minsk secretly. According to the official press-release of the OSCE mission in Belarus of July 24, in May the OSCE office received a request of the Foreign Ministry of Belarus to help the government to find “an independent international legal expert, who specializes on criminal law and law of criminal procedure of the Eastern European region, with the aim to study the case of entrepreneurs Autukhovich, Lyavonau and Asipenka”.

“The aim of teh expert was to give an objective evaluation of this case and find out possible violations in the sphere of human rights or abuse of criminal procedure,” Schmidt said.

As Mr Finke said many times in interviews to Belarusian mass media, he hadn’t found any violations of the Belarusian law in that case.

At the same time, there are reasons to doubt that Finke’s evaluation is unbiased:

- The expert’s visit was secret. Neither state institutions, nor the OSCE office in Minsk have found it necessary to inform the accused, his lawyer, or legal representative about the visit.

- The expert didn’t have talks with the accused, or with his lawyer, but only with representatives of state organs.

- Under Article 229 Part 1 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of Belarus, during the expert examination rights of the accused and his lawyer were violated. Among them the right to be acquainted with the decree about intended expert examination, to challenge an expert, to be present during examination under approval of the investigator, to give explanations to an expert and so on.

It is known that the report by Mr Finke is distributed in the embassies of European countries in Belarus, so there is a danger that this report could become a basis for the position of European democratic structures on this criminal case.

In the connection that the EU and the OSCE, as well as the Belarusian democratic community are interested in a quick legal solution of the case of Belarusian businessmen, we ask you:

1) To define the role and give legal treatment of the actions of the head of the OSCE Office in Belarus Hans-Johan Schmidt, who was taking part in organizing the international expert examination.

2) In case actions by Hans-Johan Schmidt found breaking international and Belarusian norms, to issue a decision under the Statue and other OSCE documents”.

As we have informed, Mikalai Autukhovich and 2 other activists of the movement of businessmen from Vaukavysk, Uladzimir Asipenka and Yury Lyavonau, were detained on February 8 with the approval of the prosecutor of the Hrodna region. On February 18, the three were charged under article 218 of the Criminal Code (intentional damage to or destruction of property of citizens).

In the remand prison of Minsk Mikalai Autukhovich was on hunger strike of protest for 3 months. It was stopped only on July 16.