Council of Europe: Attacks on opposition in Belarus became menacing

The Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Thomas Hammarberg, criticizes the Belarusian authorities for persecuting the opposition.

“In Belarus, the crackdown on opposition politicians, civil society groups, human rights defenders and media continues. While no less than seven hundred demonstrators were arrested in the evening after the elections of 19 December, several of them have now been brought to court, have faced unsubstantiated charges and received extreme sentences,” Thomas Hammarberg says in his statement, spread by the Committee on International Control over the Human Rights Situation in Belarus.

The Commissioner underlines: “Belarus is not a member of the Council of Europe, and at present it does not meet the requirements for membership.”

“One consequence is that its citizens cannot benefit from support from the Council’s mechanisms and programs in support of human rights, democracy and rule of law. It is all the more important that the fate of the Belarusian people is not forgotten, and that we extend constructive support to civil society in this European country,” Hammarberg said.

He turns attention that “the presidential candidate Andrei Sannikov, who was badly ill-treated, has now been sentenced to five years of hard labour for having protested against election fraud”.

“Others who stood trial with him got between three and three and a half years in prison”, the statement says.

“The court held the well-known activists among the 30 000 peaceful demonstrators at Independence Square responsible for the broken windows on the House of Government caused by a small number of hooligans some distance from the main and orderly demonstration,” the Commissioner thinks.

According to him, “The politicised court procedures have been accompanied by stigmatising statements by government officials.”

“Human rights defenders have been accused of being traitors and a fifth column,” the statement says. “These attacks acquired a particularly senseless and menacing dimension after the terrorist attack at Minsk metro station on 11 April – as if there was any connection between this awful crime and human rights defence. One of those targeted was Ales Bialiatski, the head of the Human Rights Centre ‘Viasna’.”

“There have been numerous reported cases of intensified restrictions of general activities of human rights defenders and activists. They have been harassed and repeatedly questioned by law-enforcement officers,” Hammarberg stresses.

The Commissioner regards the raids on offices of main human rights organizations, closing two independent newspapers, official warnings to members of the journalists’ association from KGB and prosecutors as repressive.

“These repressive actions represent an intensification of the previous restrictions against independent civil society groups,” Hammarberg states.