22/06/2011 | Session
The PACE Political Affairs Committee appointed on 21 June, Andres Herkel (Estonia, EPP/CD), as rapporteur on the situation in Belarus, replacing Sinikka Hurskainen (Finland, SOC).
31/05/2011 | Political Affairs and Democracy
“Given the ongoing harassment and political trials of civil society and political opponents, and continuing the restrictions of freedom of speech and association, the human rights situation in Belarus is deteriorating and remains a matter of serious concern,” said Sinikka Hurskainen (Finland, SOC), PACE's outgoing rapporteur on Belarus, speaking today.
16/05/2011 | President
Following the recent sentencing of former presidential candidate Andrey Sannikau to five years of imprisonment, Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly President Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, today strongly condemned the ongoing politically motivated trials by the Belarusian courts of the former presidential candidate as well as several other representatives of opposition parties, independent journalists and human rights defenders.
14/04/2011 | Session
The Assembly today urged the US and Japan, as observer states to the Council of Europe, and Belarus, which aspires to membership, to join the growing consensus among democratic countries that protect human rights and human dignity by abolishing the death penalty. In a resolution based on a report by Renate Wohlwend (Liechtenstein, EPP/CD), PACE said: “The European experience has shown conclusively that the death penalty is not needed to check violent crime, and that political leaders who led the way towards abolition did not suffer any backlash from public opinion.”
12/04/2011 | Session
The human rights situation in Belarus has “not improved” since January 2011, on the contrary, and therefore there can be “no progress” in relations between the Assembly and Belarus, according to PACE’s rapporteur on Belarus Sinikka Hurskainen (Finland, SOC).
11/03/2011 | Standing Committee
The Standing Committee has just approved the setting up of an Ad hoc committee of the Bureau on recent detentions, prosecutions and convictions of members of the opposition in Belarus, tasked with gathering and analysing all relevant information concerning the events of 19 December 2010 following the presidential election in Belarus and subsequent developments in respect of members of the opposition.
09/03/2011 | Political Affairs and Democracy
At a meeting of the PACE Political Affairs Committee in Paris today, the rapporteur on the situation in Belarus Sinikka Hurskainen (Finland, SOC) strongly condemned the continuing repression of civil society, human rights defenders, independent media and political opponents in Belarus.
04/03/2011 | Culture, Science, Education and Media
Mats Johansson, Standing Rapporteur of the PACE on Media Freedom, and Arne König, President of the European Federation of Journalists, today made the following statement on the situation of the media in Belarus: “We are shocked by the systematic silencing of the independent media in Belarus, which has dramatically increased since the presidential elections in December last year, resulting into a de facto denial of freedom of expression and information of the Belarus people.”
01/03/2011 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Renate Wohlwend (Liechtenstein, EPP/CD), PACE rapporteur on abolition of the death penalty, is dismayed by the prospect of the imminent execution of two young men, Aleh Gryshkautsou, aged 29, and Andrei Burdyka, aged 28, convicted for murder during an armed robbery in 2009. A broadcast on national television on 22 February 2011 recalled that the sentence had come into force after the two men's appeals had been turned down.
27/01/2011 | Session
Dismayed by the unprecedented wave of violence and persecution which followed the announcement of the results of the presidential election in Belarus in December 2010, the Assembly today called on the Belarus authorities to “release immediately” all opposition candidates, journalists and human rights activists detained on political grounds and to put an end to all acts of harassment and intimidation...
24/01/2011 | Session
On adopting its final agenda at the opening of the 2011 Winter Session (24-28 January), the Parliamentary Assembly decided to hold three urgent debates on Thursday 27 January. The subjects will be the recent violence against Christians in the Middle East, the situation in Belarus in the aftermath of the presidential election and the situation in Tunisia. The Assembly has also decided to hold a current affairs debate on the functioning of democracy in Hungary.
20/12/2010 | Political Affairs and Democracy
Strasbourg, 20.12.2010 – The Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) rapporteur for Belarus, Sinikka Hurskainen (Finland, SOC) has expressed her deep concern at yesterday’s episodes of violence on the streets of Minsk following the presidential elections on Sunday 19 December. “I am...