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Category: belarus

  • Paris Olympics Could Feature Only 40 Russian Athletes, Says IOC’s Coates

    Long lines formed at polling stations across Russia’s 11 time zones in time for the “Noon Against Putin” protest against a presidential election expected to virtually gift Vladimir Putin another six years of rule, making him the country’s longest-serving leader.

    Voting on March 17, the last day of the election held over a span of three days, took place with virtually no opposition to the long-serving incumbent.

    Russians not in favor of seeing Putin serve yet another term settled on showing up at polling places simultaneously at midday in large numbers, with some taking steps to spoil their ballots.

    Dozens of detentions were reported around the country as the vote took place under tight security, with Russia claiming that Ukraine, which it accused of launching a wave of air attacks that reached as far as Moscow, was attempting to disrupt voting.

    Putin’s greatest political rival, Aleksei Navalny, died a month before the polls in an Arctic prison amid suspicious circumstances while serving sentences widely seen as politically motivated.

    Other serious opponents to Putin are either in jail or exile or were barred from running against him amid a heightened crackdown on dissent and the independent media.

    The situation left only three token rivals from Kremlin-friendly parties on the ballot — Liberal Democratic Party leader Leonid Slutsky, State Duma deputy speaker Vladislav Davankov of the New People party, and State Duma lawmaker Nikolai Kharitonov of the Communist Party.

    Despite Navalny’s death, his support for the idea of using the “Noon Against Putin” action to show the strength of the opposition lived on. The protest, a workaround of Russia’s restrictive laws on public assembly, called on people to assemble at polling stations precisely at noon.

    While it was difficult to determine voters’ reasoning for showing up to vote, many appeared to be answering the call to protest across the country as the deadline moved from Russia’s Far East toward Moscow, and from then to the western area of the country and parts of Ukraine occupied by Russia.

    Videos and images posted on social media showed long lines of voters formed at noon in Novosibirsk, Chita, Yekaterinburg, Perm, and Moscow among other Russian cities.

    “The action has achieved its goals,” said Ivan Zhdanov, the head the Anti-Corruption Foundation formerly headed by Navalny, on YouTube. “The action has shown that there is another Russia, there are people who stand against Putin.”

    The protests were accompanied by a heavy police presence and the threat of long prison terms for those seen as disrupting the voting process.

    The OVD-Info group, which monitors political arrests in Russia, said that more than 65 people were arrested in 14 cities across the country on March 17.

    Twenty people in Kazan, in the Tatarstan region, were detained and later released, according to Current Time. One Ufa resident was reportedly detained for trying to stuff a photograph of Navalny into a ballot box. And in Moscow, a voter was detained after he appeared at a polling station wearing a T-shirt bearing Navalny’s name.

    In St. Petersburg, a woman was reportedly arrested after she threw a firebomb at a polling station entrance, others were detained elsewhere in the country for spoiling ballots with green antiseptic into ballot boxes.

    Some activists were reportedly summoned to visit Federal Security Service branches precisely at 12 p.m., the same time the protest was expected.

    Outside Russia, Russian citizens also reportedly took part in the “Noon Against Putin” campaign, including in Tokyo, Istanbul, and Phuket. In Moldova, voting at the Russian Consulate in Chisinau was reportedly delayed after an apparent fire-bombing.

    The Moscow prosecutor’s office earlier warned of criminal prosecution of those who interfered with the vote, a step it said was necessary due to social-media posts “containing calls for an unlimited number of people to simultaneously arrive to participate in uncoordinated mass public events at polling stations in Moscow [at noon on March 17] in order to violate electoral legislation.”

    Lawyer Valeria Vetoshkina, who has left the country, told Current Time that if people do not bring posters and do not announce why they came to the polling station at that hour, it would be hard for the authorities to legitimately declare it a “violation.”

    But she warned that there are “some basic safety rules that you can follow if you’re worried. The first is not to discuss why you came, just to vote. And secondly, it is better to come without any visual means of agitation: without posters, flags, and so on.”

    The OVD-Info human rights group issued a statement labeled “How to Protect Yourself” ahead of the planned protest, also saying not to bring posters or banners and “do not demonstrate symbols that can attract the attention of the police, do not shout slogans. If you are asked why you came at noon, do not give the real reason.”

    Russian election officials, officially, said that as of late afternoon on March 17 more than 70 percent of the country’s 114 million eligible voters had cast ballots either in person or online.

    Observers widely predict that there was virtually no chance that Putin would not gain another term in office. A victory would hand him his fifth presidential term over a span of 24 years, interrupted only by his time spent as prime minister from 2008-2012.

    Over the first two days, some Russians expressed their anger over Putin’s authoritarian rule by vandalizing ballot boxes with a green antiseptic dye known as “zelyonka” and other liquids, with Russian officials and independent media reporting at least 28 cases.

    Incidents were reported in at least nine cities, including Moscow, St. Petersburg, Sochi, and Volgograd.

    Ella Pamfilova, head of Russia’s Central Election Commission (TsIK), on March 16 said there had been 20 cases of people attempting to destroy voting sheets by pouring liquids into ballot boxes and eight incidents of people trying to destroy ballots by setting them on fire or by using smoke bombs.

    On March 16, independent media reported that Russian police had opened at least 28 criminal probes into incidents of vandalism in polling stations, a number expected to grow.

    Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, now deputy head of the Security Council, on March 16 denounced election protesters as “villains” and “traitors” who are aiding the country’s enemies, particularly Ukraine.

    “This is direct assistance to those degenerates who are shelling our cities today,” he said on Telegram. “Criminal activists at polling stations should be aware that they can rattle for 20 years in a special regime [prison],” he added.

    Many observers say Putin warded off even the faintest of challengers to ensure a large margin of victory that he can point to as evidence that Russians back the full-scale war Moscow launched against Ukraine in February 2022.

    Meanwhile, Ukraine stepped up attacks on Russia leading up to the election, including strikes deep inside the country.

    On March 17, Russia’s Defense Ministry reported downing 35 Ukrainian drones overnight, including four in the Moscow region. Other drones were reportedly downed in the Kaluga and Yaroslavl regions neighboring the Moscow region, and in the Belgorod, Kursk, and Rostov regions along Russia’s southwestern border with Ukraine.

    On March 16, Ukrainian forces shelled the border city of Belgorod and the village of Glotovo, killing at least three people and wounding eight others, Russian officials said.

    The same day, a Ukrainian drone strike caused a fire at an oil refinery that belongs to Russian oil giant Rosneft in the Samara region, some 850 kilometers southeast of Moscow, regional Governor Dmitry Azarov said. An attack on another refinery was thwarted, he added.

    Ukraine generally does not comment on attacks inside Russia, but Reuters quoted an unidentified Ukrainian source as saying that Kyiv’s SBU intelligence agency was behind strikes at three Samara region Rosneft refineries — Syzran, Novokuibyshevsky, and Kuibyshevsky, which is inside the Samara city limits.

    “The SBU continues to implement its strategy to undermine the economic potential of the Russian Federation that allows it to wage war in Ukraine,” the news agency quoted the source as saying.

    Russian authorities, who have accused Kyiv of launching assaults designed to disrupt voting, claimed that Ukraine on March 16 dropped a missile on a voting station in a Russian-occupied part of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhya region, although the report could not be verified.

    With reporting by RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service, Reuters, and AP


    This content originally appeared on News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Belarus Halts Lithuanian Imports In Response To Border Closures

    Russians began voting on the first day of a three-day presidential election that President Vladimir Putin is all but certain to win, extending his rule by six more years after any serious opponents were barred from running against him amid a brutal crackdown on dissent and the independent media.

    The vote, which is not expected to be free and fair, is also the first major election to take place in Russia since Putin launched his full-scale invasion of neighboring Ukraine in February 2022.

    Putin, 71, who has been president or prime minister for nearly 25 years, is running against three low-profile politicians — Liberal Democratic Party leader Leonid Slutsky, State Duma Deputy Speaker Vladislav Davankov of the New People party, and State Duma lawmaker Nikolai Kharitonov of the Communist Party — whose policy positions are hardly distinguishable from Putin’s.

    Boris Nadezhdin, a 60-year-old anti-war politician, was rejected last month by the Russian Central Election Commission (TsIK) because of what it called invalid support signatures on his application to be registered as a candidate. He appealed, but the TsIk’s decision was upheld by Russia’s Supreme Court.

    “Would like to congratulate Vladimir Putin on his landslide victory in the elections starting today,” European Council President Charles Michel wrote in a sarcastic post on X, formerly Twitter. “No opposition. No freedom. No choice.”

    The first polling station opened in Russia’s Far East. As the day progresses, voters will cast their ballots at nearly 100,000 polling stations across the country’s 11 time zones, as well as in regions of Ukraine that Moscow illegally annexed.

    By around 10 a.m. Moscow time, TsIK said 2.89 percent of the 110 million eligible voters had already cast their ballots. That figure includes those who cast early ballots, TsIK Chairwoman Ella Pamfilova said.

    Some people trying to vote online reported problems, but officials said those being told they were in an electronic queue “just need to wait a little or return to voting later.”

    There were reports that public sector employees were being urged to vote early on March 15, a directive Stanislav Andreychuk, the co-chairman of the Golos voters’ rights movement, said was aimed at having workers vote “under the watchful eyes of their bosses.”

    Ukraine and Western governments have condemned Russia for holding the vote in those Ukrainian regions, calling it illegal.

    Results are expected to be announced on March 18.

    The outcome, with Putin’s foes in jail, exile, or dead, is not in doubt. In a survey conducted by VTsIOM in early March, 75 percent of the citizens intending to vote said they would cast their ballot for Putin, a former KGB foreign intelligence officer.

    The ruthless crackdown that has crippled independent media and human rights groups began before the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine was launched, but it has been ratcheted up since. Almost exactly one month before the polls opened, Putin’s most vocal critic, opposition politician Aleksei Navalny, died in an isolated Arctic prison amid suspicious circumstances as he served sentences seen as politically motivated.

    Many observers say Putin warded off even the faintest of challengers to ensure a large margin of victory that he can point to as evidence that Russians back the war in Ukraine and his handling of it.

    Most say they have no expectation that the election will be free and fair, with the possibility for independent monitoring very limited. Nadezhdin said he would recruit observers, but it was unclear whether he would be successful given that only registered candidates or state-backed advisory bodies can assign observers to polling stations.

    “Who in the world thinks that it will be a real election?” Michael McFaul, the former U.S. ambassador to Moscow, said in an interview with Current Time, the Russian-language network run by RFE/RL, ahead of the vote.

    McFaul, speaking in Russian, added that he’s convinced that the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden and other democracies in the world will say that the election did not offer a fair choice, but doubted they will decline to recognize Putin as Russia’s legitimate president.

    “I believe that is the right action to take, but I expect that President Biden is not going to say that [Putin] is not a Russian president. And all the other leaders won’t do that either because they want to leave some kind of contact with Putin,” he said.

    Before his death, Navalny had hoped to use the vote to demonstrate the public’s discontent with both the war and Putin’s iron-fisted rule. He called on voters to cast their ballots at 12 p.m. on March 17, naming the action Noon Against Putin.


    Viral images of long lines forming at this time would indicate the size of the opposition and undermine the landslide result the Kremlin is expected to concoct. The strategy was endorsed by Navalny not long before his death and his widow, Yulia Navalnaya, has promoted it.

    “We need to use election day to show that we exist and there are many of us, we are actual, living, real people and we are against Putin…. What to do next is up to you. You can vote for any candidate except Putin. You could ruin your ballot,” Navalnaya said.

    How well this strategy will work remains unclear. Moscow’s top law enforcement office warned voters in the Russian capital on March 14 against heeding calls to take part in the action, saying participants face legal punishment.

    With reporting by RFE/RL’s Todd Prince, Current Time, and AP


    This content originally appeared on News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Council of Europe’s human rights commissioner lends voice to refugee defenders

    Lorenzo Tondo in Palermo reported in the Guardian of 22 February 2024 that people and groups who assist asylum seekers are reporting a disturbing trend of escalating intimidation, with aid workers facing direct threats including being held at gunpoint and having their phone communications monitored by government authorities, according to a report from the Council of Europe’s commissioner for human rights.

    Dunja Mijatović has warned of increasing harassment and in some cases criminalisation of people and groups who assist refugees, especially in Hungary, Greece, Lithuania, Italy, Croatia and Poland. [see e.g. https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2021/11/17/greeces-mistaken-deterrence-migrants-and-aid-workers-facing-heavy-prison-sentences/ and https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2020/10/09/mary-lawlor-condemns-criminalization-of-those-saving-lives-in-the-mediterranean/]

    “Organisations and people assisting refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants have been subjected to beatings, had their vehicles or equipment destroyed, or have been targeted by vandalism of their property, and even by arson or bomb attacks,” she wrote.

    A recent example was the bombing on 5 January of the office of Kisa, an NGO assisting refugees, asylum seekers and migrants in Cyprus. [see: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2024/01/19/attack-against-cypriot-anti-racism-ngo-kisa/]

    Mijatović said she had observed in certain member states how authorities had engaged with human rights defenders in an aggressive or intimidating manner. During the humanitarian crisis at the Poland-Belarus border, thousands of refugees from the Middle East were offered a route by the Lukashenko regime to try to reach the EU from Belarus, highlighting the restrictions by Poland on access to the border zone for people and organisations providing humanitarian assistance and legal aid.

    The commissioner noted how “the emergence of an approach in which migration issues are increasingly addressed by member states from a security perspective” had led to the building of fences and deployment of military personnel, equipment and surveillance in border areas that has also affected NGOs.

    “These physical obstacles deny asylum seekers the chance to seek protection and the right to a fair and efficient asylum procedure [and] this approach has also created an extremely difficult environment for human rights defenders,” she wrote.

    “Those who assist refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants may be seen by states as an obstacle to the implementation of asylum and migration policies focused on deterrence and security, and therefore are faced with hostility. The rolling back of human rights, which is often part of states’ policies in this area, also leads to measures explicitly or implicitly targeting those helping.”

    NGO rescue boats have also faced violence, including the use of firearms, from non-European countries with which Council of Europe member states cooperate on external migration control. NGO workers on some of these vessels have documented how often the Libyan coastguard has fired gunshots and endangered crew members and people in distress in the central Mediterranean. [see e.g. https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2019/12/18/international-migrants-day-the-story-of-the-ocean-viking/]

    Mijatović also noted the growing use of surveillance technologies. “During discussions for the preparation of this document concerns were raised that, in some member states, pervasive surveillance activities created mounting challenges for human rights defenders, including lawyers and journalists,” she wrote.

    “Governments, in the name of national security concerns, often employ advanced surveillance tools to intercept communications and monitor online activities, including human rights defenders’ social media.”

    In 2022, the Greek journalists Thanasis Koukakis and Stavros Malichudis were allegedly targeted for investigating sensitive topics such as financial crime cases and migration. The Italian justice minister in 2021 dispatched inspectors to Sicily after revelations that prosecutors had intercepted hundreds of telephone conversations involving no fewer than 15 journalists and covering migration issues and aid workers in the central Mediterranean.

    Mijatović wrote: “Invasive surveillance practices, whether through physical surveillance, phone and internet tapping or by using spyware not only infringes on the personal security and privacy of individual human rights defenders, but also threaten the confidentiality between human rights defenders and the refugees, asylum seekers and migrants they assist, which is often crucial to working effectively.”

    She added that people helping refugees, asylum seekers and migrants often experience extremely high levels of online hate and even death threats. Human rights defenders who are themselves refugees or from an ethnic minority background may also receive racist abuse, online and offline.

    https://www.theguardian.com/law/2024/feb/22/people-helping-asylum-seekers-in-europe-face-rising-violence-report-warns

    This post was originally published on Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards.

  • Former Leader Of Independent Labor Union In Belarus On Trial

    Ukraine and its regional allies on March 10 assailed reported comments by Pope Francis in which the pontiff suggested opening negotiations with Moscow and used the term “white flag,” while the Vatican later appeared to back off some of the remarks, saying Francis was not speaking about “capitulation.”

    Francis was quoted on March 9 in a partially released interview suggesting Ukraine, facing possible defeat, should have the “courage” to sit down with Russia for peace negotiations, saying there is no shame in waving the “white flag.”

    Live Briefing: Russia’s Invasion Of Ukraine

    RFE/RL’s Live Briefing gives you all of the latest developments on Russia’s full-scale invasion, Kyiv’s counteroffensive, Western military aid, global reaction, and the plight of civilians. For all of RFE/RL’s coverage of the war in Ukraine, click here.

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy hit out in a Telegram post and in his nightly video address, saying — without mentioning the pope — that “the church should be among the people. And not 2,500 kilometers away, somewhere, to mediate virtually between someone who wants to live and someone who wants to destroy you.”

    Earlier, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba reacted more directly on social media, saying, “When it comes to the ‘white flag,’ we know this Vatican strategy from the first half of the 20th century.”

    Many historians have been critical of the Vatican during World War II, saying Pope Pius XII remained silent as the Holocaust raged. The Vatican has long argued that, at the time, it couldn’t verify diplomatic reports of Nazi atrocities and therefore could not denounce them.

    Kuleba, in his social media post, wrote: “I urge the avoidance of repeating the mistakes of the past and to support Ukraine and its people in their just struggle for their lives.

    “The strongest is the one who, in the battle between good and evil, stands on the side of good rather than attempting to put them on the same footing and call it ‘negotiations,’” Kuleba said.

    “Our flag is a yellow-and-blue one. This is the flag by which we live, die, and prevail. We shall never raise any other flags,” added Kuleba, who also thanked Francis for his “constant prayers for peace” and said he hoped the pontiff will visit Ukraine, home of some 1 million Catholics.

    Zelenskiy has remained firm in not speaking directly to Russia unless terms of his “peace formula” are reached.

    Ukraine’s terms call for the withdrawal of all Russian troops from Ukraine, restoring the country’s 1991 post-Soviet borders, and holding Russia accountable for its actions. The Kremlin has rejected such conditions.

    Following criticism of the pope’s reported comments, the head of the Vatican press service, Matteo Bruni, explained that with his words regarding Ukraine, Francis intended to “call for a cease-fire and restore the courage of negotiations,” but did not mean capitulation.

    “The pope uses the image of the white flag proposed by the interviewer to imply an end to hostilities, a truce that is achieved through the courage to begin negotiations,” Bruni said.

    “Elsewhere in the interview…referring to any situation of war, the pope clearly stated: ‘Negotiations are never capitulations,’” Bruni added.

    The head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, Major Archbishop Svyatoslav Shevchuk, said Ukraine was “wounded but unconquered.”

    “Believe me, no one would think of giving up. Even where hostilities are taking place today; listen to our people in Kherson, Zaporizhzhya, Odesa, Kharkiv, Sumy! Because we know that if Ukraine, God forbid, was at least partially conquered, the line of death would spread,” Shevchuk said at St. George’s Church in New York.

    Andriy Yurash, Ukraine’s ambassador to the Vatican, told RAI News that “you don’t negotiate with terrorists, with those who are recognized as criminals,” referring to the Russian leadership and President Vladimir Putin. “No one tried to put Hitler at ease.”

    Ukraine’s regional allies also expressed anger about the pope’s remarks.

    “How about, for balance, encouraging Putin to have the courage to withdraw his army from Ukraine? Peace would immediately ensue without the need for negotiations,” Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski wrote on social media.

    Lithuanian President Edgars Rinkevichs wrote on social media: “My Sunday morning conclusion: You can’t capitulate to evil, you have to fight it and defeat it, so that evil raises the white flag and surrenders.”

    Alexandra Valkenburg, ambassador and head of the EU Delegation to the Holy See, wrote “Russia…can end this war immediately by respecting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine. EU supports Ukraine and its peace plan.”

    With reporting by RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service


    This content originally appeared on News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Belarus Begins ‘Comprehensive’ Check Of Combat Preparedness

    Ukraine and its regional allies on March 10 assailed reported comments by Pope Francis in which the pontiff suggested opening negotiations with Moscow and used the term “white flag,” while the Vatican later appeared to back off some of the remarks, saying Francis was not speaking about “capitulation.”

    Francis was quoted on March 9 in a partially released interview suggesting Ukraine, facing possible defeat, should have the “courage” to sit down with Russia for peace negotiations, saying there is no shame in waving the “white flag.”

    Live Briefing: Russia’s Invasion Of Ukraine

    RFE/RL’s Live Briefing gives you all of the latest developments on Russia’s full-scale invasion, Kyiv’s counteroffensive, Western military aid, global reaction, and the plight of civilians. For all of RFE/RL’s coverage of the war in Ukraine, click here.

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy hit out in a Telegram post and in his nightly video address, saying — without mentioning the pope — that “the church should be among the people. And not 2,500 kilometers away, somewhere, to mediate virtually between someone who wants to live and someone who wants to destroy you.”

    Earlier, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba reacted more directly on social media, saying, “When it comes to the ‘white flag,’ we know this Vatican strategy from the first half of the 20th century.”

    Many historians have been critical of the Vatican during World War II, saying Pope Pius XII remained silent as the Holocaust raged. The Vatican has long argued that, at the time, it couldn’t verify diplomatic reports of Nazi atrocities and therefore could not denounce them.

    Kuleba, in his social media post, wrote: “I urge the avoidance of repeating the mistakes of the past and to support Ukraine and its people in their just struggle for their lives.

    “The strongest is the one who, in the battle between good and evil, stands on the side of good rather than attempting to put them on the same footing and call it ‘negotiations,’” Kuleba said.

    “Our flag is a yellow-and-blue one. This is the flag by which we live, die, and prevail. We shall never raise any other flags,” added Kuleba, who also thanked Francis for his “constant prayers for peace” and said he hoped the pontiff will visit Ukraine, home of some 1 million Catholics.

    Zelenskiy has remained firm in not speaking directly to Russia unless terms of his “peace formula” are reached.

    Ukraine’s terms call for the withdrawal of all Russian troops from Ukraine, restoring the country’s 1991 post-Soviet borders, and holding Russia accountable for its actions. The Kremlin has rejected such conditions.

    Following criticism of the pope’s reported comments, the head of the Vatican press service, Matteo Bruni, explained that with his words regarding Ukraine, Francis intended to “call for a cease-fire and restore the courage of negotiations,” but did not mean capitulation.

    “The pope uses the image of the white flag proposed by the interviewer to imply an end to hostilities, a truce that is achieved through the courage to begin negotiations,” Bruni said.

    “Elsewhere in the interview…referring to any situation of war, the pope clearly stated: ‘Negotiations are never capitulations,’” Bruni added.

    The head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, Major Archbishop Svyatoslav Shevchuk, said Ukraine was “wounded but unconquered.”

    “Believe me, no one would think of giving up. Even where hostilities are taking place today; listen to our people in Kherson, Zaporizhzhya, Odesa, Kharkiv, Sumy! Because we know that if Ukraine, God forbid, was at least partially conquered, the line of death would spread,” Shevchuk said at St. George’s Church in New York.

    Andriy Yurash, Ukraine’s ambassador to the Vatican, told RAI News that “you don’t negotiate with terrorists, with those who are recognized as criminals,” referring to the Russian leadership and President Vladimir Putin. “No one tried to put Hitler at ease.”

    Ukraine’s regional allies also expressed anger about the pope’s remarks.

    “How about, for balance, encouraging Putin to have the courage to withdraw his army from Ukraine? Peace would immediately ensue without the need for negotiations,” Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski wrote on social media.

    Lithuanian President Edgars Rinkevichs wrote on social media: “My Sunday morning conclusion: You can’t capitulate to evil, you have to fight it and defeat it, so that evil raises the white flag and surrenders.”

    Alexandra Valkenburg, ambassador and head of the EU Delegation to the Holy See, wrote “Russia…can end this war immediately by respecting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine. EU supports Ukraine and its peace plan.”

    With reporting by RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service


    This content originally appeared on News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Incommunicado For A Year: Tsikhanouskaya Decries Conditions For Jailed Husband In Belarus


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and was authored by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Belarusian president signs law granting him lifelong immunity from prosecution

    Alexander Lukashenko’s law also bars exiled opposition leaders from standing in presidential elections

    The Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, has signed a new law granting him lifelong immunity from criminal prosecution and preventing opposition leaders living in exile from running in future presidential elections.

    The law theoretically applies to any former president and members of his or her family. In reality, it is only relevant to the 69-year-old Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus with an iron fist for almost 30 years.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Polish refugee worker and Kurdish defender receive Paul Grüninger award 2023

    The Paul Grüninger Foundation awarded Polish refugee worker Paula Weremiuk and Kurdish politician Ayşe Gökkan, who is in prison in Turkey, the 2023 Grüninger Recognition Prize for Humanity and Courage 2023. [see: https://www.trueheroesfilms.org/thedigest/awards/845EA081-C3DB-705C-E6FC-1BA88858803E]

    The award ceremony took place on at the Palace Cultural Center in St. Gallen.

    Paula Weremiuk from Narewka on the Polish-Belarusian border works as a teacher during the day and as a refugee aid worker in the Bialowieza forest at night. According to the Paul Grüninger Foundation, a refugee drama of enormous proportions has been taking place there since 2021.

    Paula Weremiuk searches for people in need in the inaccessible areas of Bialowieza, providing them with clothing, food, sleeping bags and the most basic necessities, writes the Paul Grüninger Foundation. The Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenka is forcing thousands of refugees from the Middle East and Africa across the border to Poland, where they are met with strong political rejection.

    At the border, in the primeval forest of Bialowieza, there is often brutal violence, abuse, rape and repeated deaths. The refugees, including women and small children, are helplessly abandoned to their fate in the inaccessible terrain and are chased back and forth across the border by the authorities. Refugee helpers are being harassed and criminalized, the press release continues.

    Ayşe Gökkan’s award was accepted by her lawyer, Berfin Gökkan. The lawyer read out a letter from Ayşe Gökkan written in Kurdish: “I greet you with the warmth of the sun and the enthusiasm of Jin-Jiyan-Azadî. As a member of the Movement of Free Women, I accept this award on behalf of thousands of struggling Kurdish women. There are many fighting women in prison in Turkey.”

    The foundation justified the awarding of the recognition prize of 10,000 francs to the Kurdish feminist and human rights defender Ayşe Gökkan for her civil society commitment and her criminalization:

    “Ayşe Gökkan has particularly distinguished herself as a journalist and as an activist for women’s rights. For almost forty years, she has been writing newspaper columns against racial and gender discrimination, speaking at national and international podiums and seminars, leading workshops on the topic of gender inequality and taking part in peaceful demonstrations in this context.

    From 2009 to 2014, Ayşe Gökkan was mayor of the Kurdish city of Nusaybin, which lies on the border between Turkey and Syria. When Turkey began to build a wall against refugees between Nusaybin and the neighbouring Syrian town of Qamishlo, the mayor protested against this “wall of shame” with, among other things, a sit-in strike.

    Because of her civil society commitment, Ayşe Gökkan has been arrested in Turkey more than eighty times, subjected to more than two hundred investigations and, in 2021, sentenced to more than 26 in a grotesque court case based on the statements of a single “secret witness” for membership in a “terrorist organization”.

    She is a victim of the criminalization of the political opposition in Turkey. Ayşe Gökkan is in prison, her sentence has not yet been confirmed by the Turkish Court of Cassation, and proceedings are also pending before the European Court of Human Rights.”

    https://anfenglish.com/women/jailed-kurdish-politiciangokkan-awarded-paul-gruninger-foundation-s-recognition-prize-70380

    This post was originally published on Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards.

  • Belarus musicians jailed for up to nine years amid protest crackdown

    Opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya condemns the sentencing of Tor Band’s three members

    Musicians from a group that became a symbol of protest in Belarus have been sentenced to prison terms of up to nine years in the country’s relentless crackdown on dissent.

    Tor Band became widely known in Belarus during a wave of protests that arose in August 2020 after a disputed presidential election in which Alexander Lukashenko was declared the winner, giving him a sixth term in office.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • A fake Ryanair hijack – and the fear that has stalked Belarus’s people ever since

    When a passenger plane was forced to land in Minsk in 2021, one man screamed: ‘They’ll kill me’. Many of his countrymen and women now realise they are also not safe, even in exile

    For a few days in May 2021, the perilous reality of being a dissenting voice in Belarus was laid bare when pilots on board Ryanair flight FR4978 bound for Vilnius in Lithuania were forced to make an emergency landing in Minsk after entering Belarusian airspace.

    The pilots had been told by Belarusian air traffic control that the plane had a bomb on board. When one of them announced to passengers that the plane was being diverted to Minsk, a young male passenger leapt to his feet. He shouted that if the plane landed he would be seized by the authorities. “I am wanted there, they’ll kill me,” he screamed.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • About the ‘Stand As My Witness’ campaign which advocates on behalf of imprisoned Human Rights Defenders Around the World

    Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

    On 4 August 2023, Jaxx Artz in Global Citizen explains the Stand As My Witness’ campaign:

    Stand As My Witness was created in response to a growing trend in which civil society actors were arrested for their human rights work. Formerly known as Civil Society Behind Bars, the initiative is one of CIVICUS’ most effective strategies when it comes to sounding the alarm about the plights faced by HRDs around the world. According to the global alliance, hostile government actors and authoritarian regimes often use flawed legal processes with little oversight in order to prosecute activists. “[There are targeted attacks] against people uncovering high-level corruption, exposing very serious human rights violations, calling for accountability, and seeking to drive change in their societies,” Mandeep Tiwana, chief programs officer at CIVICUS, told Global Citizen.

    As part of the campaign’s goal to spread awareness about some of the world’s imprisoned activists, CIVICUS profiles a handful of detained HRDs on their website. In actuality, these names and cases represent just a small percentage of people who are currently in prison because of their activism, and whom CIVICUS is trying to get released.

    Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, founder and president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, who was forcibly arrested by Bahraini authorities. [see: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/tag/abdulhadi-alkhawaja/ and https://www.trueheroesfilms.org/thedigest/laureates/4d45e316-c636-4d02-852d-7bfc2b08b78d]

    As the global conditions for civic society worsen — with only 3.2% of the world’s population living in countries where civic space is considered open, according to the international global alliance CIVICUS — human rights defenders (HRDs) like al-Khawaja increasingly face the risk of government retaliation. 

    “The detention of HRDs is often arbitrary and a form of reprisal for the work [they] do,” David Kode, advocacy and campaigns lead at CIVICUS, told Global Citizen. “Take al-Khawaja, for example, who has been in prison since 2011 and is serving a life sentence. Despite many advocacy efforts, the Bahraini authorities seem to be bent on ‘punishing’ him and his family for calling for democratic reforms more than a decade ago.”

    Made up of civil society organizations and activists across more than 175 countries, CIVICUS has been campaigning on behalf of HRDs since its founding in 1993. As part of their work, the Stand As My Witness campaign — launched over 10 years ago — has sought to encourage investigations into unlawful imprisonments and bring global attention to cases like al-Khawaja’s.

    Belarus has been restricting civic space and activists for years, with attacks increasing since the 2022 elections. [see also; https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/tag/belarus/]

    How Are Human Rights Defenders Being Targeted?

    CIVICUS has found that the tactics used to target HRDs are eerily similar across national borders and, over the years, the trends have only become more apparent and concerning.

    “[The imprisonment of HRDS] is often preceded by stigmatization about their work, which includes branding activists as security risks. We saw this happen a lot after the [Arab Spring] in the Middle East and North Africa in 2011,” Tiwana said. “A lot of authoritarian regimes became fearful of people organizing and coming out into the streets to engage in civil society.”

    To limit public support of pro-democracy movements and ostracize activists from society, government officials may twist the narrative surrounding an HRD’s arrest and accuse them of being spies for other nations. They may also invoke counter-terrorism or security legislation to pressure judges and quickly detain organizers or protestors without arrest warrants.

    Take Khurram Parvez, an HRD from Northern India who was arrested in 2021 on charges of conspiracy and terrorism, for example. Parvez’s work documenting human rights violations — which include instances of disappearance, torture, and unlawful killing — in the Jammu and Kashmir region of India caught the attention of Indian authorities who wanted to silence his advocacy work.

    See: https://www.trueheroesfilms.org/thedigest/laureates/81468931-79AA-24FF-58F7-10351638AFE3 and https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/tag/khurram-parvez/

    CIVICUS currently advocates on behalf of Parvez through various strategies, such as raising concerns about his detention with the UN, holding meetings with diplomats in India, and encouraging the Human Rights Council in Geneva to put pressure on Indian officials to release him.

    “We continue to raise concerns about his detention on social media, telling his story as a human rights defender and highlighting the gaps left by his detention in relation to the amazing work he does promoting human rights in Kashmir and supporting those who are forcibly disappeared in Asia,” Kode told Global Citizen. 

    The private sector also plays an increasing role in silencing HRDs. Businesses may file strategic lawsuits against public participation (fittingly known as SLAPPs) against activists when their human rights work interferes with corporate profits or interests. [see: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/tag/strategic-lawsuits-against-public-participation-slapps/]

    In recent years, environmental activists and Indigenous land defenders have faced the brunt of the attacks as corporations file lawsuit after lawsuit restricting the right to protest, leading many activists to face house arrest, financial ruin, or imprisonment.

    How Does Stand As My Witness Help Imprisoned HRDs?

    Despite the myriad challenges that HRDs and civil society organizations face in their day-to-day work, CIVICUS’ Stand As My Witness campaign has been able to raise the profile of many activists who have been unjustly imprisoned.

    Loujain al-Hathloul, for instance, is an HRD from Saudi Arabia who is well known for leading the campaign to legalize a woman’s right to drive. While in prison for nearly three years, al-Hathloul was subjected to severe torture from Saudi Arabian authorities, including electric shocks, flogging, and sexual assault, and denied regular access to see her family while in prison. See: https://www.trueheroesfilms.org/thedigest/laureates/1a6d84c0-b494-11ea-b00d-9db077762c6c

    CIVICUS and other human rights organizations were able to mount an international campaign to bring attention to the years-long persecution faced by al-Hathloul and other women activists. The hashtag #FreeLoujain popped up across social media platforms, with global citizens around the world speaking up to urge Saudi Arabian authorities to release al-Hathloul.

    While a national court initially sentenced al-Hathloul to five years and eight months for “conspiring against the kingdom,” she was released after 1,004 days. According to Tiwana, international pressure played a significant role in her release.

    How Can Global Citizens Take Action?

    The Stand As My Witness campaign relies on advocacy efforts from every part of civil society — when Global Citizens take action, for example, their voices can put an immense amount of pressure on world leaders.

    “Hostile governments may have [HRDs] locked up for years, and it takes a concerted effort from relevant agencies, state actors, non-state actors, organizations, civil society, the media, and others to put enough pressure that leads to their release,” Tiwana said. “But justice often moves very slowly.”

    One of the biggest challenges CIVICUS experiences with the Stand As My Witness campaign is engaging people during the life cycle of a case, which can often last several years. To fight against indifference, CIVICUS encourages Global Citizens everywhere to pay attention to the humanity of each activist who has dedicated their lives to the realization and protection of human rights.

    You can get involved with the Stand As My Witness campaign by engaging with CIVICUS on social media, writing letters to government officials, and sharing information about HRDs who are not currently represented on CIVICUS’ interactive map. 

    You can also demand that governments release HRDs from unjust imprisonment by taking action with Global Citizen on civic space issues.

    https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/stand-as-my-witness/

    This post was originally published on Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards.

  • Nasta (Anastasia) Loika in Belarus sentenced to 7 years in a penal colony

    Nasta Loika

    Nasta (Anastasia) Loika was sentenced to 7 years in a penal colony for “inciting racial, national, religious or other social enmity or discord” on 20 June 2023. She is a prisoner of conscience, targeted in retaliation for her human rights work.

    Nasta (Anastasia) Loika is a prominent human rights defender and educator, focusing her work on human rights violations resulting from the use of the repressive “anti-extremist” legislation in Belarus, the protection of foreign nationals and stateless persons in Belarus, and on human rights education.

    Nasta Loika was sentenced for “inciting racial, national, religious or other social enmity or discord” under Part 3 of Article 130 of the Belarusian Criminal Code on 20 June 2023. The Belarusian human rights defender and prisoner of conscience was arbitrarily detained on 28 October 2022, accused of “petty hooliganism”, a violation under Article 19.1 of the Code of Administrative Offences. As the Belarusian authorities repeatedly brought the allegations against her, she served a total of five consecutive 15-day terms in detention for the same purported offence. On 24 December 2022, she was arbitrarily charged under Articles 342.1 (“Organization and preparation of actions that grossly violate public order, or active participation in them”) and 130.3 (“inciting racial, national, religious or other social enmity or discord”) of the Belarusian Criminal Code.

    Nasta Loika reported that she had been tortured by electric shock during questioning and that whilst in detention she was left out in the courtyard for eight hours without outerwear in cold weather. She has consistently not been provided with the medical care she requires, which in itself may amount to inhumane and degrading treatment.

    https://www.amnesty.org.uk/resources/urgent-action-outcome-human-rights-defender-sentenced-7-years

  • Winners of 2023 UN Human Rights Prize Announced

    Julienne Lusenge, one of the 2023 UN Human Rights Prize winners speaking at the General Assembly high-level dialogue on “Building Sustainable Peace for All” earlier this year.

    Julienne Lusenge, one of the 2023 UN Human Rights Prize winners, speaking at the General Assembly high-level dialogue on “Building Sustainable Peace for All” earlier this year. UN Photo/Manuel Elías

    On 20 July 2023 the President of the General Assembly Csaba Kőrösi announced the winners of the United Nations Prize in the Field of Human Rights for 2023. 

    For more on this prize which is awarded every five see: https://trueheroesfilms.org/thedigest/awards/74A3B502-F3DF-4DDB-8D6F-672C03B4A008

    This year’s winners were the Human Rights Center “Viasna”, based in Belarus, Julienne Lusenge from the Democratic Republic of the Congo [see also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2021/10/11/congolese-julienne-lusenge-wins-1-million-2021-aurora-prize/], Amman Center for Human Rights Studies from Jordan, Julio Pereyra from Uruguay and the Global Coalition of civil society organizations, Indigenous Peoples, social movements and local communities.

    The recipients of the Prize were chosen by a Special Committee from more than 400 nominations received from Member States, the UN system, and civil society. 

    The Committee is chaired by the President of the General Assembly, and its members include the President of the Economic and Social Council, the President of the Human Rights Council, the Chair of the Commission on the Status of Women, and the Chair of the Advisory Committee of the Human Rights Council. 

    The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) provided support to the special committee.  The award ceremony for the 2023 Prize will take place at UN Headquarters in New York in December 2023, as part of activities to commemorate Human Rights Day. 

    The members of the Special Committee also acknowledged the important role played by human rights defenders and activists, praising them for their courage and dedication while strongly condemning any attempts to “silence and intimidate” them.

    They expressed solidarity with those who are detained in retaliation for their work in defending human rights and pursuing the implementation of all the provisions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, marking it’s 75th birthday this year.

    https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/07/1138957

    https://www.ohchr.org/en/about-us/what-we-do/un-human-rights-prize/2023-recipients

    This post was originally published on Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards.

  • Belarus detains journalist Ihar Karnei on undisclosed charges, bans Polish journalist Justyna Prus

    New York, July 20, 2023—Belarusian authorities should immediately disclose the reason for the recent detention of journalist Ihar Karnei, reverse their decision to ban Polish journalist Justyna Prus, and let the media work freely, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Thursday.

    On Monday, July 17, authorities in Minsk searched the home of Karnei, a former freelance journalist with Radio Svaboda, the Belarus service of the U.S. Congress-funded broadcaster Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, detained him, and ordered him to be held for 10 days, according to a Facebook post by his daughter Palina Karnei, a report by the Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ), an advocacy and trade group operating from exile, and multiple media reports. He is held in Akrestina temporary detention center in Minsk, those sources said.

    Palina Karnei told independent news website Mediazona that her father was facing criminal charges, but authorities did not disclose the reason for Karnei’s detention. Police seized computers and phones during the search of his apartment, media reports said.

    Separately, on June 30, a Belarusian border guard in Brest, a Belarusian city at the Poland-Belarus border, gave Prus, a Polish correspondent with Polish state news agency PAP, who was leaving Belarus, a document stating that she was banned from entering Belarus until June 7, 2028, following a decision by the Belarusian State Security Committee, or KGB, according to media reports, Tomasz Jarosz, the head of PAP’s foreign desk, who communicated with CPJ via email, and another PAP representative who communicated with CPJ via messaging app on condition of anonymity.

    “With the arrest of Ihar Karnei, the Belarusian authorities are following their usual pattern of detaining journalists on opaque grounds to maintain the pressure on independent voices. Meanwhile, the ban on Justyna Prus marks the departure of one of the last Western journalists from Belarus,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator. “Authorities should immediately disclose the reason for detaining Karnei, reverse the ban on Justyna Prus, and let the media work freely in Belarus.”

    Belarusian authorities have jailed an increasing number of journalists for their work since 2020, when the country was wracked by mass protests over the disputed reelection of Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko. In 2022, CPJ ranked the country as the world’s fifth worst jailer of journalists, with at least 26 journalists behind bars when CPJ conducted its most recent prison census on December 1.
     
    On July 1, Lukashenko signed into law a bill empowering the country’s Ministry of Information to ban the activities of foreign media in Belarus “in the event of unfriendly actions by foreign states against Belarusian media.”

    The PAP representative told CPJ that Prus was leaving Belarus for a personal trip to Poland on June 30, when she was notified of the five-year ban. Jarosz told CPJ that the document handed to Prus stated she was banned under Article 30 of the law on the legal status of foreign citizens in Belarus, but did not provide further details.

    Prus had been reporting from Belarus for PAP since 2016, and was accredited by the Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the PAP report said. The representative told CPJ that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs canceled her accreditation in October 2020, when it annulled all foreign media accreditation, and reinstated it in the first half of 2021. Prus’ accreditation was valid at the time of the ban, but expired on July 13.

    Other recent detentions of journalists in Belarus:

    • Previously, around July 7, authorities in the eastern city of Mahilou detained Dzmitry Lyapeyka a freelance journalist and a former reporter with the local outlet Mahilou Vedomosti, and ordered him to be detained for 15 days for “subscriptions and likes,” according to multiple media reports and a BAJ report. Those reports did not specify the exact date of Lyapeyka’s detention or the charges he faces. CPJ is investigating to determine whether Lyapeyka’s detention is related to his journalism.
    • On June 9, officers with the Ministry of Interior’s Main Directorate for Combating Organized Crime and Corruption detained at least four journalists with privately-owned broadcaster Ranak in the southeastern city of Svietlahorsk on charges of distributing extremist materials, according to multiple media reports and BAJ. The journalists included Ranak editor-in-chief Vadzim Vezhnavets, reporter Andrei Lipski, and cameramen Pavel Rabko and Uladzimir Papou. In addition, law enforcement detained three other non-journalist employees of the broadcaster and two employees whose occupation was not made public.

    On June 12, a court in Svietlahorsk ordered Lipski and Rabko to be detained for seven days, confiscated their phones, and ordered Vezhnavets and Papou to be held for three days. They were all released after serving their sentence, a BAJ representative told CPJ via messaging app, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. The other five Ranak employees received fines ranging from 780 (US$312) to 925 (US$370) Belarusian rubles.

    According to BAJ’s unnamed source, the charges opened against the journalists are retaliation for Ranak’s coverage of a June 7 explosion of a pulp and paper mill in Svietlahorsk. Ranak covered the 2020 nationwide protests demanding Lukashenko’s resignation, media and BAJ reported. Authorities had previously searched the company’s office and some of its journalists’ apartments in 2020 and 2021.

    The Belarusian Ministry of Information blocked Ranak’s website shortly after the detentions, BAJ reported. On July 4, a court in the southeastern city of Homel labeled Ranak’s website and its social media as “extremist,” BAJ said. 

    • On June 6, law enforcement detained Tatsiana Pytko, the wife of freelance camera operator Vyacheslau Lazarau, who was detained in February, in the outskirts of the northeastern city of Vitebsk, BAJ and banned human rights group Viasna said. Lazarau was charged with facilitating extremist activity and Pytko, was charged with participating in an extremist formation, those sources said. If found guilty, they both face up to six years in jail, BAJ reported.

    The charges against Lazarau stem from his alleged collaboration with the banned Poland-based independent broadcaster Belsat TV. According to BAJ, while examining the content of Lazarau’s computer and phone, investigators noticed that Pytko appeared in some of the footage.

    CPJ emailed the Belarusian Investigative Committee and the KGB, but did not receive any reply.


    This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • State of Human Rights in Belarus called ‘Catastrophic’ at the UN

    The regime of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko — seen here in Minsk, Belarus, on April 10, 2023 — is deliberately purging civil society of its last dissenting voices, a United Nations special rapporteur told the U.N. Human Rights Council on Tuesday.

    The human rights situation in Belarus is catastrophic, and only getting worse, the United Nations special rapporteur on the country said on 4 July 2023, according to AFP.

    Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko’s regime in Minsk is deliberately purging civil society of its last dissenting voices, Anais Marin told the U.N. Human Rights Council.

    “The situation remains catastrophic. Unfortunately, it keeps on worsening,” said the special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Belarus. “The Belarusian government amended an already restrictive legislation aimed at dismantling civic freedoms, leading to a surge in politically motivated prosecutions and sentencing.

    “The lack of accountability for human rights violations fosters a climate of fear among victims and their families,” Marin said. Marin has been in post for five years and reminded the council that she alerted them two years ago to the “totalitarian turn” taken by Minsk, evidenced by the “disregard for human life and dignity” during the crackdown on peaceful protesters in 2020. In her annual report, the French political scientist said more than 1,500 individuals were still being detained on politically motivated charges, with a daily average of 17 arbitrary arrests since 2020.

    “I have good reasons to believe that prison conditions are deliberately made harsher for those sentenced on politically motivated grounds, by placing them in punishment cells for petty infraction to prison rules,” said Marin.

    “No one has been held accountable in Belarus for arbitrarily detaining tens of thousands of peaceful protesters in 2020, nor for the violence or torture many of them have been subjected to.

    “This general impunity, and the climate of fear resulting from ongoing repression, have compelled hundreds of thousands of Belarusians into exile.

    Human rights defenders face ongoing persecution, she said, with more than 1,600 “undesirable organizations forcibly dissolved, including all remaining independent trade unions.

    “This illustrates a deliberate state policy of purging civic space of its last dissenting elements,” she said.

    Marin said independent media outlets had been labelled as “extremist organizations,” while academic freedom is “systematically attacked.”

    “Ideological control and disciplinary measures restrict freedom of opinion and their expression,” she said.

    Primary and secondary education is also subject to “ideological control,” with children “discouraged from expressing their own opinions” and facing “threats and consequences” for holding dissenting views.

    Consequences for speaking out

    As for the Russian invasion of Ukraine, individuals face challenges when trying to speak out against it or question Belarus’s role in facilitating the 2022 invasion.

    “Anti-war actions led to numerous detentions and arrests, some on charges of planning terrorist attacks — a crime which can now be punished by death,” she said.

    Belarus was immediately offered the Human Rights Council floor to respond to Marin’s comments but was not present.

    On 11 July HRW underlined this with the case of Belarusian lawyer Yulia Yurhilevich and journalist Pavel Mazheika who ace up to seven years in prison

    https://www.eeas.europa.eu/delegations/un-geneva/hrc53-interactive-dialogue-situation-human-rights-belarus-eu-statement_en?s=62

    https://www.voanews.com/a/state-of-human-rights-in-belarus-catastrophic-un-told-/7167606.html

    https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/07/11/travesty-justice-reaches-new-low-belarus

    This post was originally published on Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards.

  • Iran Joins Shanghai Cooperation Organization

    This week’s News on China.

    • SCO’s 23rd Summit
    • Measures to protect the chip industry
    • Over-reliance on seed imports
    • Fewer Chinese students in the US

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Nuclear Weapons “Sharing” Is a Dangerous Practice That Brings Us Closer to War

    Russia has begun transferring tactical, or short-range, nuclear weapons to Belarus, prompting President Joe Biden to call the move “absolutely irresponsible” earlier this month. He’s not wrong. It is irresponsible to disburse nuclear weapons to other countries, increasing the risk that those weapons could be used by accident, miscalculation, or deliberately, especially with an active war nearby.

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Babbling about Prigozhin

    A lot of nonsense is being spouted by a bevy of spontaneous “Russian experts” in light of the Prigozhin spray, a mutiny (no one quite knows what to call it), stillborn in the Russian Federation.  It all fell to the theatrical sponsor, promoter and rabble rouser Yevgeny Prigozhin, a convict who rose through the ranks of the deceased Soviet state to find fortune and security via catering, arms and Vladimir Putin’s support.

    In the service of the Kremlin, Prigozhin proved his mettle.  He did his level best to neutralise protest movements.  He created the Internet Research Agency, an outfit employing hundreds dedicated to trolling for the regime.  Such efforts have been apoplectically lionised (and vilified) as being vital to winning Donald Trump the US presidency in 2016.

    His Wagner mercenary outfit, created in the summer of 2014 in response to the Ukraine conflict, has certainly been busy, having impressed bloody footprints in the Levant, a number of African states, and Ukraine itself.  Along the way, benefits flowed for the provision of such services, including natural resource concessions.

    But something happened last week.  Suddenly, the strong man of the mercenary outfit that had been performing military duties alongside the Russian Army in Ukraine seemed to lose his cool.  There were allegations that his men had been fired upon by Russian forces, a point drawn out by his capture of the 72nd Motorised Rifle Brigade commander, Lieutenant Colonel Roman Venevitin.  Probably more to the point, he had found out some days earlier that the Russian Defence Ministry was keen to rein in his troops, placing them under contractual obligations.  His autonomous wings were going to be clipped.

    The fuse duly went.  Prigozhin fumed on Telegram, expressing his desire to get a number of officials, most notably the Defence Minister, Sergei Shoigu, and Chief of the General staff Valery Gerasimov, sent packing.  A “march for justice” was organised, one that threatened to go all the way to Moscow.

    President Vladimir Putin fumed in agitation in his televised address on June 24, claiming that “excessive ambition and personal interests [had] led to treason, to the betrayal of the motherland and  the people and the cause”.  Within hours, Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko, whose diplomatic skills are threadbare, had intervened as mediator, after which it was decided that the Wagner forces would withdraw to avoid “shedding Russian blood”.

    This all provided some delicious speculative manna for the press corps and commentariat outside Russia.  Nature, and media, abhor the vacuum; the filling that follows is often not palatable.  There was much breathless, excited pontification about the end of Putin, despite the obvious fact that this insurrection had failed in its tracks.  John Lyons of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation was aflame with wonder.  Where, he wondered, was the Russian President?  Why did the Wagner soldiers “get from Ukraine to Rostov, take control of Ukraine’s war HQ then move to Voronezh without a hint of resistance”?

    John Lough of Chatham House in London claimed that Putin had “been shown to have lost his previous ability to be the arbiter between powerful rival groups.”  His “public image in Russia as the all-powerful Tsar” had been called into question.  Ditto the views of Peter Rutland of Wesleyan University, who was adamant in emphasising Putin’s impotence in being “unable to do anything to stop Prigozhin’s rogue military unit as it seized Rostov-on-Don”, only to then write, without explaining why, about uncharacteristic behaviour from both men in stepping “back from the brink of civil war”.

    Then came the hyperventilating chatter about nuclear weapons (too much of the Crimson Tide jitters there), the pathetic wail that accompanies those desperate to fill both column space.  The same degree of concern regarding such unsteady nuclear powers as Pakistan is nowhere to be seen, despite ongoing crises and the prospect of political implosion.

    Commentors swooned with excitement: the Kremlin had lost the plot; the attempted coup, if it could even be called that, had done wonders to rattle the strongman.  Those same commentators could not quite explain that Prigozhin had seemingly been rusticated and banished to Belarus within the shortest of timeframes, where he is likely to keep company with a man of comparatively diminished intellect: Premier Lukashenko himself.  Prigozhin, for all his aspirations, has a gangster’s nose for a bargain, poor or otherwise.

    As Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov put it, the original criminal case opened against Prigozhin for military mutiny by the Kremlin would be dropped, while any Wagner fighters who had taken part in the “march for justice” would not face any punitive consequences. Those who had not participated would be duly assimilated into the Russian defence architecture in signing contracts with the Defence Ministry.

    The image now appearing – much of this subject to redrawing, resketching, and requalifying – is that things were not quite as they seemed.  Assuming himself to be a big-brained Wallerstein of regime stirring clout, Prigozhin had seemingly put forth a plan of action that had all the seeds of failure.  Britain’s The Telegraph reported that “the mercenary force had only 8,000 fighters rather than the 25,000 claimed and faced likely defeat in any attempt to take the Russian capital.”

    Another reading is also possible here, though it will have to be verified in due course.  Putin had anticipated that this contingently loyal band of mercenaries was always liable to turn, given the chance.  Russia is overrun with such volatile privateers and soldiers of fortune.  Where that fortune turns, demands will be made.

    Ultimately, in Putin’s Russia, the political is never divorceable from the personal.  Chechnya’s resilient thug, Ramzan Kadyrov, very much the prototypical Putin vassal only nominally subservient, suggests that this whole matter could be put down to family business disputes.  “A chain of failed business deals created a lingering resentment in the businessman, which reached its peak when St. Petersburg’s authorities did not grant [Prigozhin’s] daughter a coveted land plot.”  The big picture, viewed from afar, can be very small indeed.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • What Happens after Kiev’s Much-touted Counteroffensive Fails?

    It’s hardly breaking news that Russia has been fighting off a crawling invasion by NATO (aided by America’s global vassals and satellite states) for well over a year now. The Neo-Nazi junta would’ve lasted mere days had it only been a Moscow vs. Kiev scenario and this fact is not Russia’s claim, but one by Josep Borrell, the European Union’s top diplomat (although his skills in diplomacy are highly questionable at best).

    It’s precisely this that makes Russia’s ability to withstand Western aggression all the more mind-boggling, particularly when considering the sheer discrepancy in population size, nominal military budgets, size of Russia’s economy in comparison to the combined financial and economic strength of the US-led political West (to say nothing of its geopolitical influence), etc.

    It should be noted that the virtually direct involvement of the political West has resulted in a strategic stalemate with tactical back and forth, as both sides made gains somewhere or were forced to concede areas elsewhere. However, the notable difference is that Russia is doing that for strategic reasons, particularly in order to avoid heavy casualties (both civilian and military), while the complete opposite is true for the Kiev regime (Bakhmut/Artyomovsk being the case in point).

    This is because the Neo-Nazi junta’s main goal is optics and keeping the narrative alive. And the narrative is that Russia is supposedly “weak” and “incapable” of defeating the US/NATO puppets in Kiev. However, the massive casualties suffered by the regime’s forces are a clear indicator of just how much of a reverie this narrative is.

    Perhaps the best proof of this is the ongoing counteroffensive of the Neo-Nazi junta forces. Although experts have already predicted how it would go (and that’s precisely how it’s been going for approximately two weeks now), the Kiev regime is forced to keep up with it, because its puppet masters don’t really care about Ukrainian casualties as long as they can portray Russia as supposedly “weak” and “incapable of winning”.

    The stakes are as high as they could possibly be, so the belligerent thalassocracy needs to ensure that the Neo-Nazi junta at least doesn’t lose the aforementioned narrative, as the prospect of actually defeating the Russian military is all but impossible. To accomplish this, the US-led political West is ready to engage in a sort of nuclear brinkmanship the world has never seen, including during the entirety of the (First) Cold War.

    To this end, Washington DC is already resorting to what some experts call “nuclear blackmail”. To prevent a complete defeat of its favorite puppets after Russia eventually launches its own counteroffensive, the US has placed additional nuclear weapons in Europe in order to increase pressure on Moscow and keep most of its forces on standby in case the ongoing Cold War between Russia and NATO turns hot. Poland, one of Moscow’s archenemies, has been particularly insistent on having American nuclear weapons deployed in its territory.

    Coupled with Warsaw’s ambitions to build probably the largest and most advanced land force in the European part of NATO, as well as station as many other NATO troops as possible, such aggressive actions have pushed Russia to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, as well as reinforce its Kaliningrad exclave.

    Specific moves to ensure Russia’s safety include the expansion of its already massive military-industrial capacity, additional deployments of its state-of-the-art hypersonic weapons (which the entire political West lacks altogether) and the overall change in its deterrence policy, which now includes the aforementioned deployment of Russian tactical nuclear weapons in allied territory, specifically Belarus.

    However, Minsk will not merely house such weapons, but will also be able to use them in case the political West escalates its aggression against Belarus itself, which has been under a crawling attack for several years now. Worse yet, the belligerent thalassocracy has never given up on trying to conduct yet another color revolution in Minsk, as it still insists that President Alexander Lukashenko is supposedly “illegitimate” and that the opposition is the “actual government in exile”.

    The Kremlin has correctly anticipated virtually all moves by the US and NATO and has revised its strategic posturing towards them, making it perfectly clear that it’s ready for any “unexpected” developments. And while Russia is certainly not the one that wants to be the first to use a nuclear weapon, the political West is doing everything in its power (short of direct war, for now at least) to push Moscow to do exactly that.

    The latest warning by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that Washington DC is pushing the transfer of nuclear-capable F-16s to the Kiev regime illustrates this perfectly. And while the mainstream propaganda machine insists this is “Russian disinformation” and “baseless fearmongering”, Lavrov’s no-nonsense bearing and the sheer magnitude of his credibility in the diplomatic world say otherwise.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Belarusian Nobel peace prize winner moved to brutal prison

    Ales Bialiatski has been in jail for 20 months following mass protests over regime of Alexander Lukashenko

    The Nobel peace prize laureate Ales Bialiatski has been transferred to a notoriously brutal prison in Belarus and has not been heard from in a month, his wife has said.

    Natalia Pinchuk said that Bialiatski, who is serving a 10-year sentence, has been kept in an information blackout since his transfer to the N9 colony for repeat offenders in the city of Gorki, where inmates are beaten and subjected to hard labour.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • ‘Truly Troubling’: Claiming Western Invasion Imminent, Lukashenko Says Belarus Seeks Nukes



    Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on Friday claimed without evidence that his government needs to “safeguard” the Eastern European country from a looming Western invasion, saying he is seeking to station intercontinental nuclear missiles there to defend Belarus against the United States and other countries in the West.

    In an hourslong speech to Parliament on the state of the nation, Lukashenko, who has been in office since 1994 and whose 2020 reelection was disputed by hundreds of thousands of Belarusians, said the West is planning to take over both Belarus and its neighboring Poland.

    “Take my word for it, I have never deceived you,” said Lukashenko. “They are preparing to invade Belarus, to destroy our country.”

    For this reason, he said, he may use so-called “tactical” nuclear weapons that Russian President Vladimir Putin said last week the Kremlin would deploy in Belarus, if Putin agrees to their use. In addition, Lukashenko said he would seek intercontinental ballistic missiles, capable of destroying whole cities from thousands of miles away, on Belarusian soil.

    “Putin and I will decide and introduce here, if necessary, strategic weapons, and they must understand this, the scoundrels abroad, who today are trying to blow us up from inside and outside,” Lukashenko told lawmakers and his constituents. “We will stop at nothing to protect our countries, our state, and their peoples. “We will protect our sovereignty and independence by any means necessary, including through the nuclear arsenal.”

    “Don’t say we will just be looking after them, and these are not our weapons,” he added. “These are our weapons and they will contribute to ensuring sovereignty and independence.”

    Putin said Saturday that the short-range nuclear weapons he plans to station in Belarus will remain under Russian control.

    Belarus relinquished its nuclear arsenal after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Lukashenko noted in his speech that Belarus gave up the weapons under pressure from former Russian President Boris Yeltsin.

    Russia’s announcement last week that it would deploy weapons in Belarus would mark the country’s first stationing of nuclear weapons outside its border in more than three decades.

    U.S. President Joe Biden said Tuesday that the pending deployment is “worrisome.”

    “Belarus hosting Russian nuclear weapons would mean an irresponsible escalation and threat to European security,” said European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell this week. “Belarus can still stop it, it is their choice. The E.U. stands ready to respond with further sanctions.”

    Lukashenko and Putin have strengthened their cooperation since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, with Belarus providing a staging ground for Russian troops.

    The Belarusian leader’s comments came amid ongoing attacks in Ukraine, with multiple rocket strikes in the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia, the site of a nuclear power plant, on Friday. Lukashenko included in his speech a call for an immediate ceasefire “without preconditions,” warning Ukraine that “it is impossible to defeat a nuclear power” and that Russia will use “the most terrible weapon” if it is threatened.

    Thijs Reuten, a Dutch member of the European Parliament, denounced Lukashenko as Putin’s “lapdog” and condemned his attempt to “blame the West.”

    “Truly troubling: Each of these steps brings Belarus closer to full-blown occupation,” said Reuten. “The Belarusian people deserve so much better.”

    This post was originally published on Common Dreams.

  • No Country for Nuclear Madmen



    The announcement by President Vladimir Putin over the weekend that Russia will deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus marked a further escalation of potentially cataclysmic tensions over the war in neighboring Ukraine. As the Associated Press reported, “Putin said the move was triggered by Britain’s decision this past week to provide Ukraine with armor-piercing rounds containing depleted uranium.”

    There’s always an excuse for nuclear madness, and the United States has certainly provided ample rationales for the Russian leader’s display of it. American nuclear warheads have been deployed in Europe since the mid-1950s, and current best estimates say 100 are there now—in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Turkey.

    Count on U.S. corporate media to (appropriately) condemn Putin’s announcement while dodging key realities of how the USA, for decades, has been pushing the nuclear envelope toward conflagration. The U.S. government’s breaking of its pledge not to expand NATO eastward after the fall of the Berlin Wall—instead expanding into 10 Eastern European countries—was only one aspect of official Washington’s reckless approach.

    During this century, the runaway motor of nuclear irresponsibility has been mostly revved by the United States. In 2002, President George W. Bush withdrew the U.S. from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, a vital agreement that had been in effect for 30 years. Negotiated by the Nixon administration and the Soviet Union, the treaty declared that its limits would be a “substantial factor in curbing the race in strategic offensive arms.”

    His lofty rhetoric aside, President Barack Obama launched a $1.7 trillion program for further developing U.S. nuclear forces under the euphemism of “modernization.” To make matters worse, President Trump pulled the United States out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, a crucial pact between Washington and Moscow that had eliminated an entire category of missiles from Europe since 1988.

    The madness has remained resolutely bipartisan. President Joe Biden quickly dashed hopes that he would be a more enlightened leader about nuclear weapons. Far from pushing to reinstate the canceled treaties, from the outset of his presidency Biden boosted measures like placing ABM systems in Poland and Romania. Calling them “defensive” does not change the fact that those systems can be retrofitted with offensive cruise missiles. A quick look at a map would underscore why such moves were so ominous when viewed through Kremlin windows.

    Contrary to his 2020 campaign platform, President Biden has insisted that the United States must retain the option of first use of nuclear weapons. His administration’s landmark Nuclear Posture Review, issued a year ago, reaffirmed rather than renounced that option. A leader of the organization Global Zero put it this way: “Instead of distancing himself from the nuclear coercion and brinkmanship of thugs like Putin and Trump, Biden is following their lead. There’s no plausible scenario in which a nuclear first strike by the U.S. makes any sense whatsoever. We need smarter strategies.”

    Daniel Ellsberg—whose book The Doomsday Machine truly should be required reading in the White House and the Kremlin—summed up humanity’s extremely dire predicament and imperative when he told the New York Times days ago: “For 70 years, the U.S. has frequently made the kind of wrongful first-use threats of nuclear weapons that Putin is making now in Ukraine. We should never have done that, nor should Putin be doing it now. I’m worried that his monstrous threat of nuclear war to retain Russian control of Crimea is not a bluff. President Biden campaigned in 2020 on a promise to declare a policy of no first use of nuclear weapons. He should keep that promise, and the world should demand the same commitment from Putin.”

    We can make a difference—maybe even the difference—to avert global nuclear annihilation. This week, TV viewers will be reminded of such possibilities by the new documentary The Movement and the “Madman” on PBS. The film “shows how two antiwar protests in the fall of 1969—the largest the country had ever seen—pressured President Nixon to cancel what he called his ‘madman’ plans for a massive escalation of the U.S. war in Vietnam, including a threat to use nuclear weapons. At the time, protestors had no idea how influential they could be and how many lives they may have saved.”

    In 2023, we have no idea how influential we can be and how many lives we might save—if we’re really willing to try.

    This post was originally published on Common Dreams.

  • ‘Extremely Dangerous Escalation’: Putin to Station Russian Nukes in Belarus



    Russian President Vladimir Putin announced on state television Saturday plans to station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus—an escalation anti-war campaigners had been warning about and that alarmed disarmament advocates and experts.

    The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) “condemns this extremely dangerous escalation which makes the use of nuclear weapons more likely,” the group declared in a series of tweets.

    “In the context of the war in Ukraine, the likelihood of miscalculation or misinterpretation is extremely high,” ICAN added. “Sharing nuclear weapons makes the situation much worse and risks catastrophic humanitarian consequences.”

    “Sharing nuclear weapons makes the situation much worse and risks catastrophic humanitarian consequences.”

    The deployment decision comes 13 months into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and after the United Kingdom this week revealed plans to provide the invaded nation with armor-piercing rounds containing depleted uranium (DU).

    Putin said the U.K.’s announcement “probably served as a reason” why Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko agreed to the plan and argued that it won’t violate Russia’s international nonproliferation treaty obligations, according to a BBC translation.

    As Reuters explained, “The Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons, signed by the Soviet Union, says that no nuclear power can transfer nuclear weapons or technology to a nonnuclear power, but it does allow for the weapons to be deployed outside its borders but under its control—as with U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe.”

    The United States, which has the world’s second-largest nuclear arsenal after Russia, “long ago deployed their nuclear weapons on the territory of their allies, NATO countries, in Europe,” the Russia leader noted. “We are doing the same thing that they have been doing for decades.”

    Russia “will not hand over” nuclear arms to Belarus, Putin insisted, explaining that his country has already given its ally an Iskander missile complex that can be equipped with weapons, plans to start training crews in early April, and aims to complete construction of a special storage facility for the nukes by the beginning of July.

    The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 and in the five years that followed, nuclear weapons based in Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine were transferred to Russia—where they have remained since.

    “It’s a very significant move,” Nikolai Sokol, a senior fellow at the Vienna Center for Disarmament and Nonproliferation, told Reuters of the deployment decision. “Russia had always been very proud that it had no nuclear weapons outside its territory. So, now, yes, they are changing that and it’s a big change.”

    Hans Kristensen, director of the Federation of American Scientists’ Nuclear Information Project, told Reuters that “this is part of Putin’s game to try to intimidate NATO… because there is no military utility from doing this in Belarus as Russia has so many of these weapons and forces inside Russia.”

    Global Zero managing partner Derek Johnson said that “Putin’s nuclear provocations are dangerous and unacceptable. U.S. and NATO must resist calls to respond in kind and avoid injecting nuclear weapons deeper into this war.”

    In addition to his nuclear announcement, Putin pointed out during the Saturday interview that Russia also has depleted uranium shells. As he put it: “I must say that certainly, Russia has something to respond. Without exaggeration, we have hundreds of thousands, namely hundreds of thousands of such shells. We are not using them now.”

    A U.K. Ministry of Defense official had confirmed earlier this week that “alongside our granting of a squadron of Challenger 2 main battle tanks to Ukraine, we will be providing ammunition including armor-piercing rounds which contain depleted uranium,” which swiftly generated concerns about not only Russian nuclear threats but also public health and environmental impacts.

    “DU shells have already been implicated in thousands of unnecessary deaths from cancer and other serious illnesses,” stressed Kate Hudson, general secretary of the U.K.-based Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, which has advocated for a moratorium on such arms. “Sending them into yet another war zone will not help the people of Ukraine.”

    This post has been updated with new comments from Derek Johnson.

    This post was originally published on Common Dreams.

  • Belarus jails senior staff at independent news site in crackdown on Lukashenko critics

    Twelve-year sentences for the women condemned as president’s ‘revenge’ while UN report accuses country of possible crimes against humanity

    Belarus has handed long jail terms to senior staff at the country’s largest independent news site, which was forced to close after historic demonstrations against strongman Alexander Lukashenko over two years ago.

    The verdicts are the latest in a crackdown on journalists, opposition figures and activists who challenged Lukashenko’s claim that he won a sixth presidential term in 2020.

    Continue reading…

  • Ales Bialiatski sentenced to 10 years in jail

    Belarus court sentences Ales Bialiatski to 10-year jail term, The sentencing of the Nobel Peace Prize winner and human rights defender has triggered protests. Media and human rights defenders across the world said that his arrest is ‘politically motivated’. See also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2022/10/08/meet-ales-bialiatski-nobel-peace-prize-2022/

    Ales Bialiatski pictured in November 2021
    Image caption, Ales Bialiatski pictured in November 2021

    Oliver Slow of BBC News reported as follows¨

    …Supporters of Mr Bialiatski, 60, say the authoritarian regime of Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko is trying to silence him. He was arrested in 2021 following massive street protests over widely disputed elections the previous year, and accused of smuggling cash into Belarus to fund opposition activity. Demonstrators were met with police brutality and Lukashenko critics were regularly arrested and jailed during the demonstrations, which started in 2020.

    Mr Bialiatski was in court alongside two fellow campaigners, Valentin Stefanovich and Vladimir Labkovich.

    Mr Stefanovich was sentenced to nine years in prison, while Mr Labkovich received seven years, according to Viasna, the group Mr Bialiatski founded in 1996. All three had pleaded not guilty.

    Mr Bialiatski’s wife, Natalya Pinchuk, said the trial was “obviously against human rights defenders for their human rights work”, describing it as a “cruel” verdict.

    Referring to her husband’s letters from prison, where he has been held since arrest, she said: “He always writes that everything is fine. He doesn’t complain about his health – he tries not to upset me.”

    Kostya Staradubets, a spokesperson for Viasna, said the sentences imposed on the three activists were “breaking our hearts”.

    Speaking to the BBC World Service’s Newshour programme, he said: “We knew that our three colleagues would get long prison terms but anyway it’s still a shock, it’s breaking our hearts, not only the [prison] terms are long but the conditions also very horrific.

    Belarus’s exiled opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya said the sentencing was “simply appalling”. “We must do everything to fight against this shameful injustice and free them,” she said.

    Berit Reiss-Andersen, chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee that awards the Nobel Peace Prize, said the verdict was a “tragedy” for Mr Bialiatski and described the charges as “politically motivated”.

    In awarding the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize to Mr Bialiatski, Ms Reiss-Anderson said the Belarusian government had “for years tried to silence him”. “He has been harassed, he has been arrested and jailed, and he has been deprived of employment,” she said.

    European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell condemned what he described as “sham trials”, adding they were “yet another appalling example of the Lukashenko regime trying to silence those who stand up in defence of human rights and fundamental freedoms of the people in Belarus”.

    There are currently 1,458 political prisoners in Belarus, according to Viasna. Authorities claim there are none.

    Mr Bialiatski is a veteran of the human rights movement in Belarus, establishing Viasna in 1996 in response to the brutal crackdown of street protests that year by Mr Lukashenko, who has been president of Belarus since the office was established in 1994. See: ¨https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2022/10/07/nobel-peace-prize-2022-goes-to-well-recognised-human-rights-defenders/

    https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-64833756

    https://www.livemint.com/

    This post was originally published on Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards.

  • Belarus jails Nobel peace prize-winning dissident Ales Bialiatski

    Pro-democracy activist sentenced to 10 years as part of Alexander Lukashenko’s purge of opponents

    Belarus has sentenced the Nobel peace prize-winning dissident Ales Bialiatski to 10 years in prison as part of Alexander Lukashenko’s purge of opponents after the 2020 pro-democracy protests against his rule.

    Bialiatski, a pro-democracy activist, is the founder of Viasna, the authoritarian country’s most prominent human rights group. He was detained in July last year and charged with smuggling cash into Belarus to fund his group’s activities, but is widely recognised as being persecuted for his opposition to Lukashenko.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Meet Volya Vysotskaia, a Belarusian human rights defender

    Meet HRF Freedom Fellow Volya Vysotskaia, a Belarusian human rights activist who exposes repression and torture by state officials. 

    Vysotskaia is currently part of the 2022 Freedom Fellowship, a programme of the Human Rights Foundation, a one-year program that provides hands-on, expert mentorship across seven critical areas: leadership, movement-building, organizing, fundraising, media, mental health, and digital security.

    On September 27, the Investigative Committee of the Republic of Belarus announced that five people would be tried in absentia — Vysotskaia is one of them. She has since been denied information about the trial, and her request to appear virtually was rejected. Should she return to Belarus, a country where torture and inhuman treatment is routine, officials will likely detain her.

    Learn more about Vysotskaia’s case.

    Q: Can you tell us about your activism protecting democracy in Belarus?

    A: From August 2020 to October 2021, I was an editor of the Telegram channel, the “Black Book of Belarus.” Our work “de-anonymized” or identified law enforcement officers and other government authorities who committed human rights violations, hiding behind their high-power statuses. We published the pictures and personal data of riot police officers, prosecutors, judges, and other officials to hold them accountable for their repression of Belarusian citizens demanding democracy and freedom. 

    Q: What led to the criminalization of the Black Book of Belarus’ editors and readers? 

    A: In October 2020, a special service agent infiltrated our team and leaked information about members. Previously, he was part of the special operation that hijacked a Ryanair flight in May 2021 to imprison Sofia Sapega, another team member. After we uncovered the agent, my team and I were chased down in Vilnius, and dozens of people in the Telegram group were also imprisoned. 

    Q: What is unique about your criminal case? 

    A: The case brought against my four colleagues and me is the first trial in absentia in the country’s history. We have been accused of “exasperation of enmity” and “social disagreement,” as well as illegal actions relating to private life and personal data. The Belarusian KGB has also added us to the list of individuals engaging in “extremist activities.” Belarusian courts recognize almost all civil society organizations as extremists, but we will be the first to be tried and sentenced without the opportunity to defend ourselves. 

    Belarusian authorities are undoubtedly denying us the right to a fair trial. Notably, I was denied access to information about my criminal case, and I never met the lawyer assigned to me, nor did the lawyer ever respond to my calls. 

    Q: What is the scope of legal harassment against Belarusian pro-democracy activists in exile? 

    A: The Lukashenko government changed the criminal procedural law back in July and invented a special proceeding for trying in absentia those who are engaged in “anti-state activities,” and living in exile. The addendum of this new procedural law provides that defendants are no longer aware of the content of their cases. It is sufficient for the legislative body to post this information on official websites, which clearly violates Article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).

    Q: What should the international community learn from your case? 

    A: The violations of the right to a fair trial, among other rights, didn’t start in Belarus with our case. It just brings back the attention of the international community to the fact that the repressions in Belarus haven’t stopped. They continue every day. The power, the judicial system, and the independence of Belarus with Lukashenko are fake. The regime represses and scares the Belarusians inside the country, and while the international community doesn’t react to the severe violations of human rights, the regime spreads its attention to those living in exile. Because silence allows them to do that.

    The international community has to learn that there have to be efficient mechanisms for bringing perpetrators to trial until they destroy whole nations, as well as to guarantee the defense for the victims of violations. International justice can’t be built on the international ignorance of injustice. Being concerned doesn’t stop dictators.Repression in Belarus. HRF condemns the actions of Alexander Lukashenko’s regime and stands with Volya and all Belarusians who speak truth to power, even when their lives are at risk

    The Freedom Fellowship is a one-year program that gives human rights advocates, social entrepreneurs, and nonprofit leaders from challenging political environments the opportunity to increase the impact of their work. Through mentorship and hands-on training sessions, fellows develop critical skills and join a growing community of human rights activists.

    https://hrf.org/category/freedom-fellows/

    This post was originally published on Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards.

  • Belarusian Human Rights defender Aleh Hulak dies

    Aleh Hulak
    Aleh Hulak © 2022 Belarusian Helsinki Committee

    On 16 December, 2022 Human Rights Watch published “In Memory of Aleh Hulak“, chair of the Belarusian Helsinki Committee (BHC) and a long-time leader of the Belarus human rights movement. Hulak, 55, led the Helsinki Committee with courage and unwavering commitment, including through the country’s recent, vicious crackdown on rights and the entrenchment of President Aliaksandr Lukashenka’s autocracy.

    The BHC, one of the country’s oldest human rights groups, has a broad mandate to advance civil and political, and social and economic rights. Hulak was a strong voice for free speech and the release of political prisoners and also for fair work conditions, and upholding human rights in business, trade union operations and health care.  

    The Belarusian government liquidated the BHC in 2021, along with hundreds of other independent groups. Hulak for years had pursued, against all odds, the group’s accreditation at the United Nations Economic and Social Council. In a bittersweet victory, his efforts succeeded less than two months ago.

    https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/12/16/belarus-memory-aleh-hulak

    This post was originally published on Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards.

  • Who Deserves a Nobel Peace Prize in Ukraine? 

    In what was described as a harsh rebuke of Russia, the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the Ukrainian human rights organization Center for Civil Liberties, along with Belarusian human rights advocate Ales Bialiatski and the Russian human rights organization Memorial. While at first glance, the Ukrainian Center for Civil Liberties might sound like a group that is well deserving of this honor, Ukrainian peace leader Yurii Sheliazhenko wrote a stinging critique.

    Sheliazhenko, who heads up the Ukrainian Pacifist Movement and is a board member of the European Bureau for Conscientious Objection, accused the Center for Civil Liberties of embracing the agendas of such problematic international donors as the U.S. Department of State and the National Endowment for Democracy. The National Endowment for Democracy supports NATO membership for Ukraine; insists that no negotiations with Russia are possible and shames those who seek compromise; wants the West to impose a dangerous no-fly zone; says that only Putin violates human rights in Ukraine; never criticizes the Ukrainian government for suppressing pro-Russian media, parties, and public figures; never criticizes the Ukrainian army for war crimes and human rights violations, and refuses to stand up for the human right, recognized under international law, to conscientious objection to military service.

    Supporting conscientious objectors is the role of Sheliazhenko and his organization, the Ukrainian Pacifist Movement (UPM). While we hear a lot about Russian war resisters, as Sheliazhenko points out even inside Ukraine, which is portrayed in Western media as a country entirely united in its war with Russia, there are men who don’t want to fight.

    The Ukrainian Pacifist Movement was founded in 2019 when fighting in the separatist-ruled Donbas region was at a peak and Ukraine was forcing its citizens to participate in the civil war. According to Sheliazhenko, Ukrainian men were “being given military summonses off of the streets, out of night clubs and dormitories, or snatched for military service for minor infractions such as traffic violations, public drunkenness, or casual rudeness to police officers.”

    To make matters worse, when Russia invaded in February 2022, Ukraine suspended its citizens’ right to conscientious objection and forbade men between the ages of 18 and 60 from leaving the country; nevertheless, since February, over 100,000 Ukrainian draft-eligible men managed to flee instead of fight. It’s estimated that several thousand more have been detained while trying to escape.

    International human rights law affirms peoples’ right, due to principled conviction, to refuse to participate in military conflict and conscientious objection has a long and rich history. In 1914, a group of Christians in Europe, hoping to avert the impending war, formed the International Fellowship of Reconciliation to support conscientious objectors. When the U.S. joined WWI, social reformer and women’s rights activist Jane Addams protested. She was harshly criticized at the time but, in 1931, she became the first American woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

    In Russia, hundreds of thousands of young men are refusing to fight. According to a source inside Russia’s Federal Security Service, within three days of Russia’s announcement that it was drafting 300,000 more recruits, 261,000 men fled the country. Those who could booked flights; others drove, bicycled, and walked across the border.

    Belarusians have also joined the exodus. According to estimates by Connection e.V., a European organization that supports conscientious objectors and deserters, an estimated 22,000 draft-eligible Belarusians have fled their country since the war began.

    The Russian organization Kovcheg, or The Ark, helps Russians fleeing because of anti-war positions, condemnation of Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine, and/or persecution they are experiencing in Russia. In Belarus, the organization Nash Dom runs a “NO means NO” campaign to encourage draft-eligible Belarusians not to fight. Despite refusing to fight being a noble and courageous act for peace – the penalty in Russia for refusing the draft is up to ten years in prison and in Ukraine, it is at least up to three years, and likely much higher, with hearings and verdicts closed to the public – neither Kovcheg, Nash Dom nor the Ukrainian Pacifist Movement, were announced as Nobel Peace Prize winners yesterday.

    The U.S. government nominally supports Russia’s war resisters. On September 27, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre declared that Russians fleeing the draft were “welcome” in the U.S. and encouraged them to apply for asylum. But as far back as last October, before Russia invaded Ukraine, amid tit-for-tat U.S.-Russia tensions, Washington announced it would henceforth only issue visas to Russians through the U.S. Embassy in Warsaw, 750 miles away from Moscow.

    To put a further damper on Russian hopes of refuge in the U.S., on the same day as the White House held its press conference where it encouraged draft-eligible Russians to seek U.S. asylum, the Biden administration announced that it would be continuing into fiscal year 2023 its FY2022 global refugee cap of 125,000.

    You would think that those resisting this war would be able to find refuge in European countries, as Americans fleeing the Vietnam war did in Canada. Indeed, when the Ukraine war was in its early stages, European Council President Charles Michel called on Russian soldiers to desert, promising them protection under EU refugee law. But in August, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky asked his Western allies to reject all Russian emigres. Currently, all non-visa travel from Russia to EU countries is suspended.

    As Russian men fled after Putin’s draft announcement, Latvia closed its border with Russia and Finland said it was likely going to be tightening its visa policy for Russians.

    Had the Nobel Peace Prize awardees been the Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian organizations that are supporting war resisters and peacemakers, it would have drawn global attention to the courageous young men taking this stand and perhaps opened more avenues for them to get asylum abroad. It could have also initiated a much-needed conversation about how the U.S. is supplying Ukraine with an endless flow of weapons but not pushing for negotiations to end a war so dangerous that President Biden is warning of “nuclear Armageddon.” It certainly would have been more in line with Alfred Nobel’s desire to bring global recognition to those who have “done the most or best to advance fellowship among nations and the abolition or reduction of standing armies.”

    The post Who Deserves a Nobel Peace Prize in Ukraine?  first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Meet Ales Bialiatski, Nobel Peace Prize 2022

    True Heroes Films (THF) has published a timely portrait of Ales Bialiatski, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize 2022, drawn from an in-depth interview with him at the Paris Summit for Human Rights Defenders in Paris, October 2018.

    See also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2022/10/07/nobel-peace-prize-2022-goes-to-well-recognised-human-rights-defenders/

    This post was originally published on Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards.