Human Rights Situation in Belarus: June 2019
Summary:
- political prisoner Mikhail Zhamchuzhny continued to serve his sentence in a penal colony in Horki;
- on June 25, Deputy Prosecutor General Aliaksei Stuk said at a press conference that a specially created group investigated mass arrests of Roma people in Mahilioŭ on May 16. According to him, the police had every reason to target the minority and reportedly committed no unlawful acts during the raid. In response, FIDH and the Human Rights Center “Viasna” issued a joint statement in which they called on the Belarusian authorities to conduct a full investigation of human rights violations that took place in Mahilioŭ;
- on June 13, Viasna learned about the execution of Aliaksandr Zhylnikau, who was sentenced to death by a verdict of the Minsk City Court. The fate of the other convict in the same case, Viachaslau Sukharka, who was also sentenced to death, is still unknown, but, given the current practice of enforcing death sentences in Belarus, we can assume that he was also executed;
- during the month, there was continued persecution of journalists working with foreign media without accreditation;
- in June, there were more documented cases of administrative prosecution of peaceful protesters;
- on June 18, in Brussels, the European Union and the Republic of Belarus held the sixth round of the bilateral dialogue on human rights;
- in general, the human rights situation during the month remained poor, with no visible positive changes, while in June there were no cases of short prison terms for political reasons, which continues the general trend of reducing the number of cases of administrative detention characteristic for the first six months of the year. The trend was not affected by the 2nd European Games held in Belarus from July 21 to 30.
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