25/01/2012 | Session
The Assembly 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.
15/12/2011 | Political Affairs and Democracy
The authorities in Belarus are “deliberately turning their back on Europe and the values it upholds”, PACE Political Affairs Committee said today, giving its full backing to the EU’s targeted sanctions of the country. Approving a draft resolution and a draft recommendation, based on a report by Andres Herkel (Estonia, EPP/CD), the committee expressed its “deep concern” at the deteriorating situation of human rights and civil and political liberties in the country.
30/11/2011 | Political Affairs and Democracy
PACE rapporteurs on Belarus, Andres Herkel (Estonia, EPP/CD), and on the death penalty, Renate Wohlwend (Liechtenstein, EPP/CD) have expressed their dismay at the death sentence handed down today on Dmitry Konovalov and Vladislav Kovalev by the Belarusian Supreme Court, which found them guilty of the fatal bombing in the Minsk Metro on 11 April 2011.
24/11/2011 | Bureau
PACE Bureau meeting today in Edinburgh, expressed its consternation at the harsh sentence handed down today on Belarusian human rights defender Ales Bialatski by the Pervomaiski District Court of Minsk.
24/11/2011 | Political Affairs and Democracy
“We consider that the trial and detention of Mr Bialiatski, held since 4 August 2011, amounts to judicial harassment of a human rights defender for carrying out legitimate human rights activities, protected under all international human rights instruments” stressed Mr Andres Herkel (Estonia, EPP) and Ms Marieluise Beck (Germany, ALDE), PACE rapporteurs on Belarus, reacting to the sentence.
16/11/2011 | Political Affairs and Democracy
PACE rapporteur for Belarus, Andres Herkel (Estonia, EPP/CD), is deeply concerned about the situation of Andrei Sannikov, former Presidential candidate, who has reportedly disappeared from a Belarusian penitentiary. On 14 May 2011, the Pershamaiski District Court of Minsk sentenced Mr Sannikov to five years in a medium security penal colony. No information on his whereabouts and the circumstances of his disappearance was given to the family or to his lawyers.
07/10/2011 | News
In a report declassified today, a PACE ad hoc committee retraces the events of 19 December 2010, following the presidential election in Belarus, which gave rise to violent repression of a protest movement and led to the arrest of 600 people.
05/10/2011 | Political Affairs and Democracy
PACE Political Affairs Committee today backed the intention of the Rapporteur for Belarus, Andres Herkel (Estonia, EPP/CD), to make a fact-finding visit to Minsk in the coming months in order to have the opportunity to meet not only with the authorities but also with political prisoners, including former Presidential candidates and Ales Bialiatski, President of the Human Rights Centre Viasna, following reports of physical and psychological ill treatment.
05/10/2011 | Session
The Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights of PACE has today expressed its dismay that Ales Bialiatski, a highly-respected human rights defender and Nobel Peace Prize nominee, has been arrested by the Belarusian authorities.
08/08/2011 | Political Affairs and Democracy
Following last week's arrest of Ales Bialiatski, head of the NGO Viasna and Vice-President of the International Human Rights Federation, on charges of “tax evasion”, Andres Herkel (Estonia, EPP/CD), PACE rapporteur on Belarus has urged the authorities in Belarus to guarantee the physical and psychological integrity of Mr Bialiatski and to put an end to all forms of harassment against him and other human rights defenders in the country.
21/07/2011 | Political Affairs and Democracy
Following the recent executions of two men, Oleg Grishkovets and Andrei Burdyka, in Belarus, as reported yesterday by the state-run Vecherny Grodno newspaper, Andres Herkel (Estonia, EPP/CD), the rapporteur on Belarus for the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), has reiterated the Assembly’s long-standing and categorical opposition to the death penalty in all circumstances.
05/07/2011 | Political Affairs and Democracy
PACE rapporteur on the situation in Belarus, Andres Herkel (Estonia, EPP/CD), has condemned the new wave of violence against peaceful protesters, journalists and human rights defenders in Belarus. “I am concerned about the rough dispersal of peaceful demonstrations in Minsk and other cities on July 3rd, Independence Day, with hundreds of protesters being brutally beaten and detained merely for clapping hands,” he said.