Intergovernmental bodies

UN Committee against Torture reviews Belarus' third periodic report

In mid-November Belarus came before the UN Committee against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (UN Committee against Torture) as part of its four-yearly review. The Committee was particularly critical of the Belarusian authorities, expressing concern about "[t]he numerous continuing allegations of torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment and treatment, committed by officials of the State party or with their acquiescence, particularly affecting political opponents of the government and peaceful demonstrators, and including disappearances, beatings, and other actions in breach of the Convention".(3) Related to these human rights violations the Committee also expressed concern about "[t]he pattern of failure of officials to conduct prompt, impartial and full investigations into the many allegations of torture reported to the authorities, as well as a failure to prosecute alleged perpetrators, in nonconformity with articles 12 and 13 of the Convention".(4) In recent years AI has repeatedly highlighted instances of human rights violations and has expressed concern about the failure of the Belarusian authorities to initiate prompt and impartial investigations.
In an effort to counteract the pervasiveness of police impunity in Belarus, the Committee recommended, among other things, that "...[u]rgent and effective steps be taken to establish a fully independent complaints mechanism, to ensure prompt, impartial and full investigations into the many allegations of torture reported to the authorities, and the prosecution and punishment, as appropriate of alleged perpetrators".(5) To this end the Committee recommended that the Belarusian authorities consider establishing an independent and impartial governmental and non-governmental human rights commission with effective power to promote human rights and investigate all complaints of human rights violations.

Visit of the UN Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers to Belarus

The UN Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, Dato' Param Cumaraswamy, visited Belarus from 12 - 17 June in order to study the state of the independence of the judiciary and the legal profession in the country. AI had previously expressed concern about the lack of independence of the judiciary, which has opened it to serious political abuse by the Belarusian authorities, and the extent to which the freedom of lawyers to practise their profession independently has been compromised in recent years (see AI Index: EUR 49/14/00). In an official press release from 22 June Dato' Param Cumaraswamy commented on the state of the judiciary: "The judiciary must not only be independent, but must be seen to be so. Only then can it command the respect of the people and the international community. So long as the laws remain as an impediment to such independence, the judiciary will remain and be seen to remain an extension of the executive". In relation to the restricted nature of the professional autonomy of lawyers the UN Special Rapporteur stated: "In these circumstances, the legal profession in Belarus cannot be seen as independent". During its recent review of Belarus the UN Committee against Torture also expressed concern about the lack of independence of the judiciary and the legal restrictions placed on lawyers which have put their professional independence into question.

Possible 'disappearances'

Dmitry Zavadsky

The whereabouts of the Russian Public Television (ORT) cameraman, Dmitry Zavadsky, became unknown on 7 July after he drove to Minsk airport to meet his former ORT colleague Pavel Sheremet, who was arriving on an aeroplane from Moscow later that morning. Dmitry Zavadsky failed to meet his colleague, even though his car was found parked at the airport. A press release issued by the Committee to Protect Journalists stated that "Zavadsky was [reportedly] seen in the airport not long before the arrival of Sheremet's flight from Moscow". In the recent past AI has also expressed concern about several prominent members of the opposition who have apparently "disappeared" (see AI Index: EUR 49/14/00). The Belarusian authorities have denied any involvement in the apparent "disappearance" of Dmitry Zavadsky. On 8 July in an interview with Russia's Interfax news agency the First Deputy Chief of the presidential administration, Vladimir Zamyatalin, reportedly accused Belarus' opposition of having staged the abduction of Dmitry Zavadsky in order to tarnish Belarus' image abroad.
The apparent "disappearance" prompted expressions of concern in Belarus and abroad and a number of international non-governmental organizations in the field of press freedom and human rights have called on the Belarusian authorities to immediately and throughly investigate the case. In an open letter to President Lukashenka on 26 December the Committee to Protect Journalists condemned "the apparent reluctance of investigators to fully investigate and resolve this crime". The organization expressed concern that the Minister of the Interior, Vladimir Naumov, who was appointed in September, is a former head of the elite Almaz police unit, employees of which have been accused of involvement in the "disappearance". Members of Belarus' opposition have claimed that the Chairman of the Committee for State Security (KGB), Vladimir Matskevich, the Secretary of the State Security Council, Viktor Sheiman, and the Prosecutor General, Oleg Bozhelko, were unexpectedly dismissed by President Lukashenka at the end of November after several former and current employees of the Almaz police unit and the presidential security service had reportedly been arrested and questioned in connection with Dmitry Zavadsky's apparent "disappearance". While a presidential spokesman explained that this personnel reshuffle was partially a result of President Lukashenka's "dissatisfaction that many important [investigation] cases have dragged on for too long without justification"(6), the opposition have maintained that the dismissed personnel came too close to discovering what had happened to Dmitry Zavadsky. It has been alleged that Dmitry Zavadsky, who had returned from Chechnya after making a documentary film, had information suggesting that former and current Belarusian state security officers had been active combatants on the Chechen side against the Russians. Dmitry Zavadsky's wife, Svetlana Zavadsky, has reportedly stated that after her husband and Pavel Sheremet returned from Chechnya, Dmitry Zavadsky began to receive telephone calls from an unknown person requesting a meeting with him. She has maintained that her husband, suspecting the Belarusian security services were behind the calls, refused to consider the request. No information about the whereabouts of Dmitry Zavadsky had been received by the end of 2000.

Update in the case of Yury Zakharenko

AI learned that in July Olga Zakharenko and her two daughters left Belarus and applied for political asylum in Germany. Yury Zakharenko, a former Minister of the Interior and leading opposition figure, apparently "disappeared" on 7 May 1999, the first day of the unofficial presidential elections (see AI Index: EUR 49/14/00). A representative of AI Germany, who interviewed Olga Zakharenko and her daughter Elena Zakharenko in the German town of Munster late last year asked Olga Zakharenko whether she had been threatened by the Belarusian authorities: "Physically attacked I was not. But we were warned and later advised to leave the country. Outside our apartment a surveillance team sat in cars without registration plates and listened in on our bugged apartment and telephone. Once I was warned that I could be involved in a car accident". Elena Zakharenko stated: "After an article I had written about my father appeared an unknown man came up to me and threatened that my child could be kidnapped, if I did not give up the campaign".(7) The family were officially given political asylum in Germany in December.

Release of possible prisoner of conscience

On 5 October Vassily Leonov, former Minister of Agriculture and director of the agricultural company Rassvet, was released in a prison amnesty. In January he had been convicted of allegedly taking bribes and sentenced to four years' imprisonment on charges which members of the opposition have claimed were politically motivated. As a moderniser in the field of agriculture, he reportedly had clashed with President Lukashenka's wish for Belarusian agriculture to remain collectivized and within the state's domain. At the time of his release Vassily Leonov had spent nearly three years in prison.

Arbitrary arrest for freedom of expression

AI continued to receive reports of people being arrested for exercising their right to peaceful assembly. In some cases significant degrees of force were reportedly used to effect the arrests and AI received allegations of police ill-treatment of detainees. In November the UN Committee against Torture also commented on such restrictions, expressing concern about: "[t]he deterioration of the human rights situation in Belarus ...including persistent abrogations of the right to freedom of expression, such as limitations of the independent of the press, and of the right to freedom of assembly, which create obstacles for the full implementation of the Convention".(8)
In the run-up to the elections in October, protestors in various cities and towns across Belarus, such as Minsk, Bobruysk and Vitebsk, were reportedly detained by police officers due to their attempts to organize a boycott of the elections. Police officers reportedly searched the detainees for election-boycott materials and confiscated them. A number of protestors were fined and received periods of administrative detention for their boycott activities after being brought before the courts. Organizers of the boycott have stated that they were repeatedly harassed by the police during the election period. A large section of Belarus' opposition had decided to boycott the parliamentary elections due to doubts about their fairness. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe and various Western governments also refused to send observers for this same reason.
AI learned that on the evening of 12 November police officers arrested around 100 young protestors during peaceful but unsanctioned pro-democracy demonstrations in the capital, Minsk, and in towns in the regions, such as Grodna, Mogilev, Baranovichy and Orsha. The organization received allegations that a number of the demonstrators were punched and kicked by police officers and repeatedly hit with truncheons as they were forced onto police buses. While a number of minors among the demonstrators were shortly released, other youth demonstrators were detained for longer periods of time and were later charged. Most demonstrators received official warnings or fines.
Death penalty

During its review of Belarus in November the Committee against Torture expressed concern about the "continuing use of the death penalty, and the inadequate procedures for appeals, lack of transparency about those being held on death row and the reported refusal to return the bodies of those executed to their relatives, inhibiting any investigation into charges of torture or ill-treatment of them in prison".(9) The head of the Belarusian delegation, Alyaksandr Ivanovsky, stated that in 1998 and 1999 respectively there were 45 and 13 executions. However, the figure given for 1999 contradicted a statement made in August 1999 by the then Chairman of the Supreme Court, Valyantsin Sukala, who said that 29 people had been executed in the first seven months of 1999.