Valyantsin Stefanovich: “The number of repressions hasn’t reduced”
- 21.10.2009, 16:17
The well-known human rights activist spoke about the real situation with political repressions in Belarus.
Valyantsin Stefanovich, a lawyer of Viasna human rights center, answered questions of www.charter97.org:
– Valyantsin, leader of the “For Freedom” movement Alyaksandr Milinkevich has recently made an unambiguous statement in an interview to Radio Svaboda that caused criticism from democratic activists. He said “the number of statements of repressed people for four months of the current year has reduced several times in comparison with four months last year.” being a human rights activist, how can you comment this?
– 525 persons were brought to administrative responsibility on political grounds in Belarus last year. In 2009, 424 persons have been detained by October (this is the total number of the detained and brought to administrative responsibility). I don’t want to say we are comprehensive – the number of the detained don political motives can be bigger. It should be taken into account that the “parliamentary elections” were held in Belarus last year, many people were detained during propaganda campaigns for independent candidates and during protest rallies against forgery. This year we have no campaigns, but the figures don’t differ much.
We should turn our attention to a tendency, which appeared at the end of last year, – arrests for taking part in peaceful opposition rallies or for handing out printed materials go on, but the authorities restrain from bringing people to administrative responsibility. Last year, we recorded only the cases, when a person was detained, had a report on administrative offence drawn up against him, the report was sent to court and the court delivered a verdict over the case.
The situation is more difficult this year. The number of people detained during protest demonstrations or handing out printed materials is not reduced. They are detained, but reports are often not drawn up against them. This tactics allows the authorities to state this is “liberalization”: they say the number of people brought to administrative responsibility on politically motivated grounds has decreased. The number of repressions hasn’t reduced.
– Can we say that the Belarusians are free to take part in peaceful assembles and express their views?
– We cannot. Being a citizen of Belarus, I can’t go with a poster to a square or a central street, to the target object without being detained or brought to administrative responsibility. The events on September 9 and 16 and October 16 have proved this, because the Law on Mass Events restricts our right to peaceful assembly.
People are beaten in streets defiantly. What causes even greater concern, they are beaten after detention in militia buses and militia department.
No significant systematic changes have been made. A citizen of Belarus still remains deprived of the right to freedom of expression. The question of changing the legislation in this sphere must be raised. The control over society remains total.
– Many people were beaten up during the last demonstrations and tortured. How Belarusian human rights activists react to this?
– We collect information about dispersals of the last peaceful demonstrations and beatings, help the victims. We have sent all complaints and polls to the United Nations Committee against Torture in Geneva through the International Federation for Human Rights. These facts have also been sent to Amnesty International.
The Belarusian prosecution agencies don’t react to these complaints. If we can’t act in our country, we will address international organizations. The world must react to the blatant violation of human rights in Belarus.