The Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights fully supports the report of the Political Affairs Committee in that it strongly criticises the Belarusian authorities for the execution, in particularly scandalous circumstances, of two persons sentenced to the death penalty.
The Committee recalls that the Assembly, in Resolution 1671 (2009), made lifting the suspension of the special guest status of the Belarusian parliament conditional upon the promulgation of a moratorium on executions.
It therefore considers the execution of Andrei Zhuk and Vasily Yuzepchuk in March 2010 as a provocative step backwards and welcomes the Political Committee’s proposal to put on hold the Assembly activities involving contacts with the Belarusian parliament and/or governmental authorities.
In paragraph 6 of the draft resolution, delete the word “high-level”.
The amendment proposed is intended to further clarify the point made in paragraph 6 of the draft resolution. The term “high-level” could give rise to confusion in that some may argue that the visit of a rapporteur of the Assembly would not be “high-level” and thus should not be “put on hold”.
Reporting committee: Political Affairs Committee
Committee for opinion: Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Reference to committee: Request for urgent debate, Reference 3659 of 26 April 2010
Opinion approved by the committee on 27 April 2010
Secretariat of the committee: Mr Drzemczewski, Mr Schirmer, Ms Szklanna, Ms Heurtin