Iryna Khalip: I do not feel as a free person yet

Any former political prisoner can get behind the bars again.
A journalist Iryna Khalip shared such an opinion in an interview to the charter97.org web-site after today’s trial.
“I do not feel as a free person yet. I do not yet understand how it is possible not to check the time at night, do not understand how it is possible to go, for example, to a theater or concert in the evening and know that even if you are back later than 10 p.m., nothing bad will happen. I do not yet understand how I can get on a train or a place and go somewhere without asking someone for permission. De-facto, I was under house arrest all the time like Uladzimir Niakliajeu. If we add the five-month jail term, then we get quite a long term. I would also like to say that a person cannot be free even if the person is not currently under arrest or criminal persecution Remember how people met Parfiankou and Jaromienak, who came from prison as free people. Now Parfiankou is preparing to go to prison again”, - the journalist noted.
She highlighted that we cannot in fact feel free, because the state machine may introduce any moment.
“Dzmitry Dashkievich will soon be released, because his prison term expires, but they will say that the situation has improved because Dashkievich is released. One must not confuse logic. Now the number of political prisoners is again increasing. That I have not been sent to a colony today does not mean that this will not happen in a month or two or in a year on a new criminal case. This does not mean that Uladzimir Niakliajeu will also be released. I still do not believe in any improvement”, - the former political prisoner says.
She added that she did not hope for anything when she went to the court.
“In these years I have been able to develop such an ability – not to expect anything, not to plan anything. Let it be as it will. So far I have plans for the nearest evening. Together with friends we are going to meet and go to some café and not to check the time”, - Iryna Khalip said.
We would remind that the court of Minsk’s Partizan district decided to free the journalist Iryna Khalip from the criminal punishment as the verdict’s postponement expired.
On 16 May 2011 the wife of a former presidential candidate Andrei Sannikov was sentenced to two years in prison with a postponement of the punishment for two years.
Photo: euroradio.fm
Kilde :  http://charter97.org/en/news/2013/7/19/72470/

Tsjekkia har offisielt anerkjent hviterussere.

På onsdag den 3.juli har den tsjekkiske regjeringen anerkjent hviterussisk nasjonal minoritet i landet og besluttet å oppnevne representanter for dette samfunnet til Statens råd for nasjonale minoriteter.

Minoritetsstatus vil automatisk kvalifisere for statlig støtte og tillater de etniske minoritetene i Tsjekkia å utvikle sin kultur, tradisjoner og språk. Den offisielle statusen gir minoritetene lov til å bruke sitt språk i offisielle institusjoner og domstoler, og ha egne skoler med opplæring på hviterussisk.

Minoriteter må oppfylle to grunnleggende forhold: deres samfunn må ha historisk tilknytning til Den tsjekkiske republikk og ha nok medlemmer med tsjekkisk statsborgerskap.

"Vår folkeforening" Pagonja " har jobbet med saken i de siste tre årene. Det var en stor historisk analyse med støtte av tsjekkiske historikere. «Erkjennelsesprosessen var ikke lett, men vi har endelig gjort det,» sa forenings medlem Vitaly Timosjchenko. De fikk støtte fra utenriksminister, Karel Schwarzenberg og kommissær for menneskerettigheter, Monica Shymunkavay. Adam Kalita skal offisielt representere den hviterussiske folkeforening, "Pagonja".

 Hviterussere har hatt bånd til de tsjekkiske landområdene siden det 16. århundre. Mange har flyktet dit fra den russiske revolusjon i 20-årene av forrige århundre. Den andre store utvandringen skjer i løpet av de siste tjue årene. Nå er det offisielt registrert flere tusen hviterussere i Tsjekkia. De kommer hit hovedsakelig av økonomiske og politiske grunner. En stor del av det hviterussiske samfunnet i Tsjekkia er studenter.

Istanbul resolution for Lukashenka

A resolution on Belarus has been adopted at a session of the OSCE’s Parliamentary Assembly in Istanbul.
The Parliamentary Assembly of the OSCE called on Belarus to immediately and unconditionally release and discharge all the political prisoners, including probationers and persons, limited in their freedom, and also ensure the full recovery of their civil and political rights. These are the points of the resolution on the situation in Belarus, adopted on 2 July at a session of the PA Democracy, Human Rights & Humanitarian Questions, BelaPAN reports.
The Parliamentary Assembly of the OSCE has again called upon the government to allow representatives of the PA to visit the political prisoners in Belarusian prisons.
The resolution condemns the treatment of the political prisoners, who are kept in prisons on politically motivated charges and in many cases are deprived of the right for regular meetings with counsels and relatives, and other treatment, humiliating a person’s dignity and equal to tortures.
The Parliamentary Assembly of the OSCE calls upon the Belarusian leadership to cancel any limitations on the movement of the probationers, including the wife of the former presidential candidate Andrei Sannikov Iryna Khalip and a former presidential candidate Uladzimir Niaklajeu.
The document also contains the appeal to official Minsk to restore the licenses of the lawyers, who were deprived of them or had to resign under pressure for protecting oppositionists and civil activists.
The authors of the resolution urge the authorities to stop putting pressure and persecuting the representatives of civil society, in particular youth organizations and movements, trade unions, independent media and human rights activists.
The government is suggested “to consider a possibility of carrying out substantial legislative reforms with the aim of bringing the country’s laws in compliance with European standards, including the elimination of the misbalance in the distribution of power in favor of the executive branch, established by the country’s Constitution of 1996, with especial attention to decreasing the dependence of the judiciary from the executive power”.
The OSCE’s Parliamentary Assembly also urges to abandon the article 193.1 of the Criminal Code (activities on behalf of an unregistered organization).
The resolution contains regrets about the limited cooperation of Belarus’ government with many institutions of the OSCE and also a working group of the PA OSCE on Belarus, which did not receive any invitations to visit the country.
The document notes that human rights violations in Belarus “are still of a systemic and endemic nature, which is visually proven by the centralization of the legislative and executive powers in the hands of the president, whose decrees are the main legislative mechanism in the country, which undermines the role of the parliament”.
OSCE’s Parliamentary Assembly calls upon Belarusian authorities to “follow their obligations within the OSCE regarding the freedom of assembly and the freedom of speech and to liberalize the legislation and practice by the means of providing citizens with a right to express public protest on the Internet and through other channels likewise”.
The resolution states the necessity to cancel all the death penalty verdicts already passed in Belarus and immediately start working on the abolition of death penalty.

Kilde: http://charter97.org/en/news/2013/7/2/71558/