(HRW/IFEX) – In a forthcoming report, Human Rights Watch describes rampant abuses under the regime of Belarusian president Aleksander Lukashenka. “The current diplomatic flap is vintage Lukashenka,” says Holly Cartner, executive director of Human Rights Watch’s Europe and Central Asia division. “The man does not accept challenges to his power – and in Belarus, his […]
(HRW/IFEX) – In a forthcoming report, Human Rights Watch describes rampant
abuses under the regime of Belarusian president Aleksander Lukashenka.
“The current diplomatic flap is vintage Lukashenka,” says Holly Cartner,
executive director of Human Rights Watch’s Europe and Central Asia division.
“The man does not accept challenges to his power – and in Belarus, his power
is virtually absolute.”
Human rights violations in Belarus bear President Lukashenka’s personal
stamp. Elected by a wide margin in 1994, he manoeuvred the dissolution of
Parliament after two years and essentially hand-picked its new members. His
presidential decrees have flagrantly violated freedom of speech, the freedom
of assembly, and the right to due process. The Human Rights Watch report
explains how secret presidential instructions have attempted to choke off
information to the independent media.
The government is applying discriminatory and disproportionate punishment to
young people who are members of the youth wing of the Belarusian Popular
Front, a leading opposition party. Earlier this year, two teenagers were
sentenced to 18 months in prison for scrawling political graffiti on public
buildings. Security forces have detained and brutally beaten many peaceful
demonstrators. Since President Lukashenka can appoint judges and
single-handedly dismiss them, court hearings for anti-government
demonstrators are rubber stamps that generally result in jail terms and
exorbitant fines.
Government security agents have clearly been involved in assaults and
threats against politically independent persons, including an opposition
newspaper editor, a human rights activist, and a film director. The
director, Yuri Khashchevatsky, won the top award at the annual Human Rights
Watch Film Festival at Lincoln Center earlier in June. After his film, “An
Ordinary President”, was shown on European television, unidentified
assailants attacked Khashchevatsky, beating him unconscious and breaking his
nose and his foot in three places.
Copies of Khashchevatsky’s film, which satirizes Lukashenka, can be obtained
by contacting Human Rights Watch. The Belarus report will be released on 1
July, to coincide with the fourth anniversary of Lukashenka’s election.
