HRC - Press conference: Group of Independent Experts on Belarus

Okay, good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us at this press conference with the Group of Independent Experts on the Human Rights Situation in Belarus, which was established by the Human Rights Council in April of 2024 to investigate alleged human rights violations committed in Belarus since May of 2020. We're pleased to have with us this morning all three members of the Group of Experts. who will be presenting their report to the Council on Friday and who released this report this morning. And to my right is Ms. Monica Platteck. In the middle, we have the chair, Ms. Karina Muscalenko. And on the far right, we have Susan Bazily. The experts will start us off with the opening statements, and then we will open the floor to your questions. Please go ahead.

We are grateful for the interest to the issue on Belarus situation with human rights. We arrived for this session of the Human Rights Council this time for updating report, but also we are going to present a conference room paper examining the system and the role of the Belarusian state institutions in violations committed throughout the criminal justice process. Our paper examines how the criminal justice system has been used against individuals because of their real or perceived opposition to the government, and the role of the state institutions at every stage, from the initial arrest and interrogation through detention, prosecution, trial, and imprisonment, and to post-release supervision. In examining the role, functioning, and chain of commands of the principal institutions involved, including the police, Department for Correction, the Committee for State Security, the Investigative Committee, the Office of the Prosecutor, and the judiciary, our findings are clear. Belarus bears responsibility for violations of multiple provisions. of the international human rights law. Monika Blatek will continue, please.

I think that what is important to stress is that during our work and during the proceeding that we are doing, We are collecting the documents showing the abuse of human rights on the level that concern the crime against humanity. But in addition, we are observing lots of processes which are very important for the life of people in peace and in a good quality life. And in addition, what's interesting is that we are facing trouble with language. The language that we used to use and which has a sense in criminal justice processes when it is done with the due process of law doesn't fit anymore to the situation that we observe in Belarus. So, for example, we had to find out the words for criminal justice, because it's very hard to call something justice even in criminal sense when there is no really proper due process of law situation. Therefore, we are using the words "proceedings" in our report, and it's important to see that it is for purpose. It's not just by accident. The other thing is that what is called criminal, usually, we are concern with something that concerns criminal law. But in this case, especially Karina Moskalenko, who had a lot of experience in European Court of Human Rights, stressed that the situation observed once in Russia is repeated in Belorussia, where we have the administrative measures, which are in fact criminal in its sense. The third thing is concerning judges, and here the situation is even more interesting because they are judges, but what we could observe was the number of cases where the people taken random from the streets are put into administrative responsibility, which means they lose their freedom. They are deprived of freedom. They are imprisoned. Those judges are very, very young. They start the school as young people, they finish law faculty young, and they probably pass the exams. But the bulk of the cases that they are doing raises the question on how far those justices are really also in a way deprived of possibility to be independent. So it's very hard to talk about independency of justice. The 4th thing, the 4th element, which is combined with it, is that the criminal justice concerns not only of judges and the proper procedures, but also of lawyers, barristers, advocates who can present the case and who can defend the people who are under charges. Well, that's not a case in Belarus. It's still something that is called, but in fact, the people who are defending the accused are either put themselves into prison or they are disbarred or they have to leave the country. So in fact, what we are facing in Belarus is the trouble to operate the language, the legal and the legal terms that we usually use in those situations. Two other elements before I stopped is concerning who is under charges. Well, we use the words that they are opposition and those who are labeled as opposition. But in fact, what we are observing is that once one group of people is released, and we are very pleased that people are released, but we shouldn't forget that most of those people should not be put under any charges and should not be deprived of liberty in the first place. But what we observe is that, first of all, release is not, in fact, just the release. It's deportation out of their own country. It's division of families. It's keeping the children in the country, depriving the family to have a chance to be together. It's putting those people who are thrown out of the country in the situation when they often have no document. no chance to get a normal life, normal work, and those who are staying in the country are member of their families are under terror of being deprived of liberty, deprived of sense of stability and safety. So that's one thing. But there is also another thing that we have trouble with language. It's trafficking. Usually trafficking concerns with people who are making business and who are bad people who are organizing the taking people out and telling them. Well, here we have something very strange because it looks like that those who are released are replaced by people who are at random, caught in the street. So collecting the documents showing that we have here cases of crime against humanity, we are also having bulk of cases proving and showing that the system that exists in Belarus is not something that we can call a criminal justice system like it is in a democratic state.

So if you review our conference room paper, you will see that what emerges is not a picture of isolated violations, but of a system in which state institutions have systematically been used to suppress dissent and fundamental freedoms. Arrests are arbitrary and violent. Detainees are held in overcrowded, unsanitary conditions. Prosecutors prolong pretrial detention that can last up to two years. Appellate courts uphold convictions. Penitentiary staff systematically abuse detainees held on politically motivated grounds. And state prosecution does not cease upon release because we have many, many cases of what we call transnational repression. So we have demanded that the Belarusian authorities should release all individuals held on politically motivated charges, respect and protect the human rights of all people in Belarus, promptly and effectively investigate allegations of human rights violations, prosecute those responsible, and provide full reparation to victims. The international community must not look away. Those responsible for serious human rights violations must know that impunity is not a permanent shield and victims must know that their rights have not been forgotten. And we are very sincere and serious in taking this responsibility as the Group of Independent Experts on Belarus. Thank you. We will take your questions now.

Thank you, everyone. We can open the floor up to questions. We'll start with those in the room. If you could just please identify yourself and the media outlet that you work for. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, I'm Christiana with the German Press Agency. Could you spell out your communications with the Belarus government? Did you have any? Did they respond to anything?

Thank you for your question. Belarus government never communicated to us, never responded any of our requests. And, but we know their position during the sessions of the Human Rights Committee. We'll listen to them. We are trying to call them for the somehow cooperate with us. They even never replied on some of our requests, which they should do some evaluation assessment. Because, for example, our request for the deaths in prisons, It is so important that every government have to know that they are responsible in any case. It concerns the positive obligations on the right to life. That's why if the government does not respond, it means that it is full responsibility of the government. They could explain in some cases, and probably there are justifying points for them, but they never replied, which means that they don't cooperate not only with our mechanism, look on their withdrawal from the Optional Protocol to the Human Rights, and they are not anymore at the Human Rights Committee, which had a lot of individual cases there. They suddenly stopped to cooperate. They do not respect a lot of their international commitments, and this is very sad. Thank you for your question.

I have one more different one. Is there anything that has materially changed in the last 12 months?

Did you observe new developments in either direction getting better or worse? Thank you.

Yes, we did. And in fact, when the question about communication with us was given, thank you very much for it, shows two kinds of developments. On the one hand, we have the representative of Belarus making statement in the forum, and it was, I guess, two years ago when we were told that... Belarus is an open country and you are very welcome, you can come. And of course, it wasn't really the truth. But what we observe now, and it is important to recognize it, is that it's not only the citizen of Belarus who are in Belarus who are undermining different troubles in everyday life and not being secure, but it is also the attitude toward those who are abroad. So there are the discipline measures taken against their own citizens who are abroad. It is normal in a civilized country that in accordance to the law that we are having in the UN that you have a right to leave your country and you have the right to come back to your country, and it means that you have rights to the documents which allow you to travel, where lots of documents of the Belarusian people who are expired abroad are not valid anymore, and they are not in a situation when they're coming back to the country safe. And demanding people to come back in order to renew the passports is one of the cases. But there are other cases. There are people who have passports and who have a citizenship, dual citizenship, and are traveling to visit families. with the children and the cases that we are having is that the person, the adult is ending up being imprisoned and there are actually no specific charges and the child is... taken hostage and not being allowed to go back to his mother. So, yes, we are observing that the government is not only keeping their own citizens who are in the country in the terror, but it's trying to terrorize those who are abroad.

As you know, there have been many releases of detainees in the past year. The most recent release was in July. While we laud the releases of these detainees, it does not mean the end of the repression, and they are released and forcibly deported into exile with no documentation. Another trend that we are seeing is that illustrates the increasing repression is, for example, detaining Groups of women involved in neighborhood chat groups, neighborhood groups that are supporting each other in a neighborhood, are being detained and being held in prison. As Monika indicated about trafficking, it seems as if there is a quota in the prisons. When Lukashenko releases a certain number of detainees, equivalent or more people are then detained and put into prison. So we are definitely not seeing an end in the repression. And as I indicated earlier, the transnational repression taking place against Belarusians in exile is also increasing.

I would add something on your question about the changes. You can easily notice that in 2020, a lot of protests against the result of the elections. We can see people in the street protesting openly, peacefully, and apprehended by police, then tortured, and then put in prisons, somebody with so-called administrative cases, somebody on basis of criminal cases. Now you cannot see this wide protest. It's a change. Probably the government, these people believe that with these changes, they can prove to the outside world that everything is going correct in the country. But is this a legitimate purpose of the government, of the authorities, to make everybody calm and afraid to protest? This we cannot accept. Our group is called Accountability Group. We have to look at the evidence of human rights violations and do not give the possibility to establish in country such type of order when everybody is afraid and fear is a motive to not express your view, your opinion openly. Again, thank you for your question.

Okay, thank you. If we I don't see any more questions online. If we have any from the room, any additional questions? If not just wait a second. Okay, if not, I think that brings us to the end of this press conference, and we thank you for joining us. Thank you.

Thank you.