4 August 2011. Johannesburg. CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation strongly condemns the arrest of Aliaksandr (Ales) Bialiatski, prominent Belarusian human rights defender, vice president of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and head of the Minsk-based human rights centre Viasna.
"We have abundant reasons to believe that any alleged charges currently against Mr. Bialiatski are directly intended to silence his active support of human rights in Belarus”, said Will Lasky, CIVICUS Eurasia Coordinator. "CIVICUS believes his detention to be politically motivated and unlawful.” Mr. Bialiatski’s arrest is yet another instance in a pattern of harassment and intimidation toward civil society in Belarus.
Bialiatski was arrested by unidentified persons who also searched his apartment. His wife, who was reportedly in the apartment at the time of the search, was not afforded the chance to examine the papers of those who presented themselves as 'finance police officers’. Earlier in the day Viasna was reportedly surrounded by members of the Belarus KGB.
“I have no doubt that these actions in respect to Ales Bialiatski and the Viasna Human Rights Centre are primarily connected with their serious and professional activities in human rights protection. The events taking place now greatly harm Belarus’s human rights movement”, said Andrey Yurov, Head of the International Observation Mission of the Committee on International Control over the Situation with Human Rights in Belarus.
Bialiatski is widely regarded as one of the founders of the Belarusian civil movement, active in campaigning for freedom of expression, assembly, association and free elections. Since the 19 December 2010 elections, he has been the subject of a radio smear campaign and labeled as "public enemy number one”, among other forms of harassment.
Viasna Human Rights Centre, which is headed by Aliaksandr Bialiatski, was denied government registration in 2003 because of its election monitoring actions and has been under intense pressure since the December 2010 elections that were widely regarded as fraudulent. Human rights advocacy groups continue to face extreme difficulties in obtaining registration in Belarus, without which their activities are deemed illegal under the country’s Criminal Code (Article 193.1).
CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation calls for Aliaksandr Bialiatski's immediate and unconditional release and for the immediate cessation of government harassment of Belarusian civil society. “It is high time that the government of Belarus comply with their international obligations by guaranteeing the fundamental freedoms of all people in Belarus, or risk becoming a pariah regime”, said Lasky.