10/04/2006 | News
The Assembly is to hold two urgent debates during its Spring session – one on the “Belarus: in the aftermath of the Presidential election of 19 March 2006”, on Thursday morning, and the other entitled “stop trafficking in women before the FIFA World Cup”, to be discussed on Wednesday morning. The parliamentarians were approving the final order of business on the opening day of the session.
31/03/2006 | Culture, Science, Education and Media
PACE’s Culture Committee has strongly condemned the denial of academic freedom in Belarus. In a statement adopted at the end of a Prague colloquy, the committee denounced the “totally controlled” system of education in the country and the harrassment of non-conforming teachers and students.
20/03/2006 | President
PACE President René van der Linden today expressed his bitter disappointment that the Assembly’s repeated calls for the Belarusian authorities to ensure free and fair presidential elections had gone unheeded. “As we feared, the OSCE’s preliminary findings have concluded that the election did not meet international standards,” said Mr van der Linden. “Through a combination of manipulative influence by the administration, a lack of freedom of expression and information, unequal access to campaigning opportunities, state control of the mass media, the frequently violent harassment of opposition candidates and supporters and an election administration that lacked independence, the Belarusian people were not permitted to choose their president through free expression of their political will.”
09/03/2006 | President
René van der Linden, President of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE), today condemned actions aimed at creating a climate of intimidation by the Lukashenko regime against opposition candidates ahead of the presidential election in Belarus, following the arrest and trial of Vincuk Viachorka, Chair of the Belarusian Popular National Front Party and an aide of presidential candidate Alexander Milinkevich.
23/02/2006 | President
René van der Linden, the President of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE), today called for an end to the isolation of the Belarusian people and proposed the opening of a Council of Europe office in Minsk. “We need to break the isolation of the Belarusian people. We must strengthen direct contacts with Belarusian democratic forces and civil society. We need to reinforce our presence in Belarus. Our Assembly has suggested establishing a Council of Europe Information Centre in the country. I think that this initiative is of fundamental importance to enable us to reach the people of Belarus,” Mr van der Linden said in a speech.
16/02/2006 | Political Affairs and Democracy
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) and the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs are organising a conference on Belarus in Prague on Thursday 23 February, in the run-up to the presidential election, which will be taking place in that country on 19 March. The conference will be opened by the President of the PACE, René van der Linden, and the Czech Minister of Foreign Affairs, Cyril Svoboda, on 23 February at 9am. in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Czernin Palace, Grand Hall, Loretanske namesti 5, Prague). It will be open to the press.
26/01/2006 | Political Affairs and Democracy
In the run-up to the presidential election in Belarus on March 2006, the PACE today called on the Lukashenko regime to refrain from “obstructing the free and fair running of the electoral campaign”, and take “positive action to ensure that pluralist information can be provided”. At the end of an urgent debate, the Assembly deplored that freedom of expression is blatantly flouted, and noted that in the last two years “the situation has not improved but worsened”. It called on member states to give “immediate financial and if necessary logistical support to independent broadcasting to Belarus from abroad”.
30/11/2005 | Culture, Science, Education and Media
"With the presidential elections in 2006... the people of Belarus have the right to be informed independently and correctly about the situation in their country," said PACE's Sub-Committee on the Media in a declaration approved today. "Without free and independent media, these elections are doomed to be non-democratic." The sub-committee also called on the EU to remove constraints on broadcasting into Belarus.
12/10/2005 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
The Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly’s Sub-Committee on Human Rights, meeting in Geneva today, invited its Chairman, Christos Pourgourides (Cyprus, EPP/CD) to express its full support for the peaceful “Day of Solidarity” with the families and friends of four missing opposition activists and journalists: Yuri Zakharenko, Victor Gonchar, Anatoly Krasovski and Dmitri Zavadski. Grassroots initiatives such as “We Remember”, “We Want to Know the Truth”, “Free Belarus”, and “Zubr” are calling on citizens in Belarus to show their solidarity by switching off their lights on Sunday 16 October at 8 pm and to place a candle in their window.
16/09/2005 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
PACE's Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, meeting in Paris this morning, adopted the following declaration : “The Committee condemns the systematic and worsening campaign of intimidation and persecution of independent journalists and civil society activists in the Republic of Belarus. The Committee denounces the recent crackdown on the Union of Belarusian Poles and Polish-language media outlets.
02/06/2005 | President
René van der Linden strongly condemned the sentencing of Mikola Statkevich, Chairman of the Belarusian Social Democratic Party, and of Paval Severinets, Youth leader of the Belarusian Popular Front, to two years imprisonment by a court in Minsk on 31 May, for “violation of public order” during a demonstration on 18 October 2004. PACE President commended the Head of the OSCE office in Minsk for publicly recalling that this demonstration was neither violent nor threatening. “These condemnations prolong the list of political prisoners in Belarus, which includes, among others, Mikhail Marynich,a former ambassador and parliamentarian and opposition leader whose immediate release from detention PACE demanded in March this year,” he said. He stressed that jailing opposition leaders will not bring Belarus closer to the Council of Europe. He recalled in this context that a satisfactory reaction was still expected to Assembly Resolution 1371 (2004) accusing several leading representatives of the Belarusian regime of being implicated in the enforced disappearance, or its cover-up, of several prominent opposition figures some years ago.
11/03/2005 | President
"I am extremely concerned to learn of the serious deterioration in the health of the Belarusian opposition leader and political prisoner Mikhail Marynich," said PACE President René van der Linden in an urgent appeal today. "I call on the authorities to transfer him immediately to a civilian hospital, with facilities for providing all necessary medical care, to allow immediate and unconditional access to him by his family, legal representatives and members of the diplomatic community, and to conduct a full, open and independent enquiry into the circumstances surrounding the sudden deterioration in his health."