Valyantsin Stefanovich: Invasion of privacy is popular in Belarus

Human rights activist don’t expect anything good from the right of secret service to interfere with the work of telephone companies.

Lawyer and human rights activist Valyantsin Stefanovich commented on the news about access of secret service to phone companies’ databases.

“I don’t expect anything good from the document,” the human rights activist says. “Belarusian authorities like to abuse such things. In fact, investigative procedures are carried out in many cases. But the grounds are unknown. Under the law, if a criminal case hasn’t been instigated against a person for a year, he or she has the right to watch any information gathered in his or her respect during the investigation. But I have never heard of such cases. The secret services refuse. They say they haven’t carry out investigation. But I know investigation has been conducted.”

Valyantsin Stefanovich notes the Criminal Code of Belarus has articles allowing invasion of privacy.

“There are law regulating tapping, reading mail and so on. As this is invasion of privacy, this should be authorized by a prosecutor,” the expert said.