The organizers and participants of the 5^th World Congress against the Death Penalty marched yesterday in the streets of Madrid, the city that has become the capital of struggling for the abolition of the cruel and inhuman punishment around the world.

Representatives of the “Human Rights Defenders against the Death Penalty in Belarus” campaign participated in the demonstration, carrying the event’s symbol, a red palm with the words “Say NO to the Death Penalty”, together with their own campaign leaflets, which were handed out to both the demonstrators and ordinary passers-by.

The march attracted much attention of Madrid residents and tourists. It was led by a group of young drummers, who set the rhythm for the entire column of demonstrators...

GENEVA (14 June 2013) – Miklos Haraszti, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Belarus, has urged the Belarus government to engage with his mandate to improve the country’s human rights situation.

“Human rights are systematically restricted in Belarus through different measures: decrees, policies and practice,” said Mr. Haraszti, speaking after his mandate was renewed by the Human Rights Council for another year. “The fulfilment of human rights remains purposefully blocked by a governance system that is devoid of any checks and balances.”

Mr. Haraszti recalled that during his first mandate he had not been able to visit Belarus and talk to officials, having received no response to his requests from the government...

The spokespersons of the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Commissioner Štefan Füle made today the following statement:

“”We welcome yesterday’s adoption by the Human Rights Council of a resolution on Belarus by a solid majority of the Council members. We note increasing support to this initiative and express our gratitude to all partners who worked on it with the European Union.

We also welcome the extension of the mandate of the UN Special Rapporteur on Belarus Mr Miklós Haraszti, who will continue to report independently and in a balanced manner and provide recommendations to the Belarusian authorities on the hum an rights situation in the country. We urge the Belarusian authorities to cooperate fully with him.

We deeply regret that on the ...

Strasbourg, 13.06.2013 – Marina Schuster (Germany, ALDE), the General Rapporteur on the abolition of the death penalty for the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), and Andres Herkel (Estonia, EPP/CD), Rapporteur on the situation in Belarus, have expressed deep concern at press reports according to which another death sentence was handed down in Belarus yesterday.

“Belarus is the only country in Europe still applying the death penalty. We can only call on the competent authorities to avoid taking another step away from the family of European nations which has done away with this cruel and inhuman punishment, a relic of another age,” they said.

Referring to the Parliamentary Assembly’s Resolution 1857 (2012), Schuster stated that the Council of Europe will continue i...

International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH)
Human Rights Center “VIASNA”

Today (13 June 2013), the United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) adopted a resolution renewing the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Belarus and expressing deep concern at continuing violations of human rights in the country.

In strong language, the resolution «urges the Government of Belarus to immediately and unconditionally release and rehabilitate all political prisoners, (…) and to put an immediate end to the arbitrary detention of Human Rights Defenders, arbitrary travel bans (…) aimed at intimimidating representatives of the political opposition and the media, as well as human rights defenders and civil society».

“The Council sent the clear message to Belarus that ...

The United Nations Human Rights Council has extended the mandate of Miklos Haraszti for one year.

Members of the UN Human Rights Council voted today in Geneva on extending or ending the mandate of UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur on Belarus Miklos Haraszti.

Delegations of 26 countries voted in favour of extending Miklos Haraszti’s report, 3 countries (India, Kazakhstan and Venezuela) voted against and 18 abstained. Under the rules, such decisions are taken by a simple majority vote.

#HRC23 adopts #Belarus reso calling for release of political detainees, in-depth legal review & judiciary reform, renews int’l scrutiny.

— Philippe Dam (@philippe_dam) June 13, 2013

In the resolution (A/HRC/23/L...

As part of the 23^rd Session of the UN Human Rights Council, the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) held a briefing with support from Human Rights Watch on the unwillingness of Russia and Belarus to implement UN decisions.

At the briefing, human rights defenders from these two countries drew parallels between the situations in both countries. They stressed that the UN must issue without delay a sharp criticism of the rapidly shrinking civil society space in the Russian Federation. Otherwise, they noted, human rights defenders will continue to be pushed out of the legal field, their activities will be criminalized, and the situation will quickly come to resemble the one currently observed in Belarus.

Valentin Stefanovich, deputy chairman of the Viasna Human Rights Center, spoke...

Today, at the 23^rd Session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Belarus Miklos Haraszti presented his report on the situation in the country.

International human rights organizations and Valentin Stefanovich, Deputy Chair of the Human Right Center Viasna, were invited to participate after the UN member states had a chance to exchange their views.

Find the full version of the presentation made by the Belarusian human rights defender who spoke on behalf of the HRC Viasna, an FIDH member organization in the country :

Today, UN Special Rapporteur Miklós Haraszti has presented his report on the human rights situation in Belarus at the 23rd session of the UN Human Rights Council.

The presentation of the report, which was published in March, took almost ten minutes. Special Rapporteur Miklós Haraszti listed the main points of the report and noted that he had not been able to visit Belarus because the government there refused to issue him an entry visa.

In his report, UN Special Rapporteur noted that the situation with political prisoners is especially grave: “When taken together with information we have received about psychological and physical pressure on prisoners, detention conditions in prison facilities can be qualified as substandard and even as torture.”