25/01/2012 Session
<p>The Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE), meeting in plenary session this week in Strasbourg, today expressed its deep concern at the deteriorating situation of human rights and civil and political liberties in Belarus and condemned the increasingly repressive approach to any attempt to express dissent. “The authorities in Minsk are deliberately turning their back on Europe and the values it upholds”, the Assembly said.</p> <p>The adopted text, based on the report by Andres Herkel (Estonia, EPP/CD), condemns the continuous persecution of members of the opposition and the harassment of civil society activists, independent media and human rights defenders and expresses concern about the conditions of detention of political prisoners, “held incommunicado and running a serious risk of torture and other forms of ill-treatment”. It deplores the sentencing of Ales Bialiatski to four and a half years of imprisonment for alleged tax evasion and considers this is “tantamount to judicial harassment”.</p> <p>As regards the death penalty, the Assembly expresses dismay at the execution of the death sentences against Aleh Hryshkautsou and Andrei Burdyka, and deplores the death sentences handed down against Dmitry Konovalov and Vladislav Kovalev, following an investigation and trial “marred by serious human rights abuses”.</p> <p>The Assembly gives full backing to the EU’s targeted sanctions, which should be maintained and even strengthened, and invites all Council of Europe member states to align with them until the release and full rehabilitation of all political prisoners and the end of the crackdown on political opponents, civil society representatives and human rights defenders.</p> <p>It also proposes to step up the Assembly’s engagement with representatives of civil society, independent media and opposition forces as well as independent professional associations, and to increase support for their development.</p> <p>The Assembly keeps on hold its activities involving high-level contacts with the authorities and maintaining the suspension of the special guest status of the Parliament of Belarus “until a moratorium on the execution of the death penalty has been decreed” and “until there is substantial, tangible and verifiable progress in terms of respect for the democratic values and principles upheld by the Council of Europe”.<br /> </p>