Mikalaj Autuchovic, Jury Lavonau and Uladzimier Asipienka had been in custody since February 8, 2009. They had been accused of “destroying property” in 2005 in the case which had already been investigated in the proper manner and on which the sentence had been passed. The injured party hasn’t filed any official claims to either of the three.

Mikalaj Autuchovic and Jury Lavonau had already served a sentence passed in a case  widely believed to have a political background and had been recognized as prisoners of conscience by ‘Amnesty International’.

There had been almost no investigative actions conducted. Until recently the case investigator had denied meetings with their family members.

Mikalaj Autuchovic is on hungerstrike since April 16 demanding that either his case is sent to court or he is released. On June 2, however the prosecutor has extended the investigation on his criminal case until July 3.

He has lost nearly 30 kilos after 7 weeks on hungerstrike.

Until now, he received no support of the EU. In his May 26 report on  Belarus for PACE Mr Rigoni has not mentioned a word about Mr Autuchovic’c hungerstrike lasting for 1,5 months by then. Based on that report, PACE came out unanimously in favour of restoring the special guest status of the Belarusan Parliament at PACE.

Background

August 16, 2008 the most prominent Belarusan prisoner, Alaksandar Kazulin, had been freed from jail where he had been serving a 5.5 year term for “hooliganism and organization of street disturbances”. Mr. Kazulin, the former President of the Belarusan State University, had been one of 2 opposition candidates in the presidential elections-2006 which had been considered massively rigged by the international community. It was his leading the peaceful demonstration of a couple thousand people to the notorious Akrescina detention center in Miensk which had landed him in prison for 5.5 years, the harshest term to be issued to a political figure of such level. However 2 years later he had been “pardoned” in what is now seen as an attempt of the Belarusan authoritarian leader to doctor the unattractive façade of Belarus for Europe which has changed its approach: the word ’sanctions’ had no longer been on the top list of the diplomats working with Belarus.

The reason for that had been quite obvious: the Russian invasion into Georgia which made the EU watch the regular ’scheduled’ gas war between Kyiv and Moscow through the glasses of the recent warfare attaching additional attention to it; the talks of Russian plan of invading Ukraine had been persistently circulating the Internet. The changed attitude to Lukasenka’s regime from Brussels’s side had definitely meant to drag one of the oldest Russian allies at least a bite away the former empire.

The time had been picked up correctly: worsening economic conditions had threatened the viability of Lukasenkan socio-economic model based on big industrial enterprises never being privatized: their target markets started shrinking thus intensifying the problem of keeping up with the established salary growth criteria which had been the point of the regime’s pride for the last 15 years. Provided that Russia’s aggression against Georgia had landed it in the utmost isolation and any other country had totally denied to recognize Southern Ossetia and Abkhazia, it was clear that the Putin-Medvedev tandem would step-up their pressures on its longest ally of Belarus in exchange of economic favours.

The assumption that this vulnerable position would make Belarusan dictator more tractable with the ghost of economic crisis on the near horizon had proved right. Of course all favours should come in exchange for something, and a couple of years earlier in Lukasenka’s case that would have been the fulfillment of 12 EU conditions concerning the democratization of the country. However given the urgency of the task, the EU had stepped down its demands: it was enough for the current head of state to release several most prominent political prisoners, allow two independent newspapers back into circulation, and remove the notoriously-known Navumau, Paulicenka, and Sejman from public positions in order to smoothen up the process; those three are widely suspected in kidnapping and potential murdering of Lukasenka’s opponents Hancar, Zacharanka, Krasouski, and videooperator Zavadzki in 1999…

The demonstrations in the central squares of Miensk are disseminated as ruthlessly as earlier; the only difference is that the common 15-day jail terms that their participants used to receive routinely are now not passed that frequently. However that doesn’t prevent the militia special force soldiers to beat up demonstrators without making any difference for their sex and age…

16 newspapers that had been banned from the state distribution network after 2001 elections are still remaining out of reach from their audience. Total circulation numbers of the two newspapers allowed back do not exceed 20 000 compared to several hundred thousand of just one official ‘Belarus Siegodnia’…

The newly established parties of ‘Belarus Christian Democracy’ and ‘The Freedom and Progress Party’ had never been registered by the Justice Ministry; the Human Rights Defence Centre of ‘Viasna’ had not been either…

The legal system remains totally dependent on the executive power. The rights of citizens are violated as a matter of routine starting from the right for compensation for those who live in detached houses which are to be demolished to complete the new city construction plans…

Role of Russia

Severe dissemination of several Miensk demonstrations which has occurred already after the ‘liberalization’ declarations and the hysterical reaction of Russia towards the ‘Eastern Partnership’ have prompted Belarusan blogosphere and  several experts to speculate on the idea that, given the narrow ties between security services of both countries, cruel dissemination of peace demonstrations might had been ordered by someone in the power pyramid at the request of Kremlin in order to keep Miensk back in Moscow orbit. The logic beyond that had been clear: new political prisoners, beating up the demonstrators etc might provoke the EU to accuse Lukašenka of not fulfilling his obligations and might bring the sanctions back. However as in the case of Polish diplomatic post being arrested by the BY border police a couple of weeks prior to the Eastern Partnership inauguration (which is a complete violation of all diplomatic conventions) the Polish side preferred to keep silent about the incident it was clear that the EU had been decisive on balancing off Russian influence on Miensk. Even at the cost of ignoring significant violations and thus legitimizing Lukašenkan regime to some extent.

These are not good news for people persecuted for their political beliefs (even if they are being presented as criminal offenders). Should the EU fail to tie its offers on cooperation to fulfillment of concrete political demands (and it is a favourable time now for it) Autuchovic, Lavonau, Asipienka and further potential victims of the regime might be left to the regime’s mercy…

Suicide of Jana Palakova

In March 2009 the lawyer and human rights defender Jana Palakova had been sentenced to 2.5 years of custodian restraint…

Instead of protesting, the highest EU representatives remained silent until today…

Three days after trial Jana committed suicide…

Many people believe that she had been SILENCED TO DEATH by promoters and profiteurs of the Eastern Partnership…

The Brussels-based office for Democratic Belarus reported the death of Jana in its XXXIX newsletter. The newsletter was published backdated, i.e. its distribution was delayed until the EU Council had decided for the Eastern Partnership…

On May 26 the Political Affairs Committee of PACE considered a report of Andrea Rigoni on the situation in Belarus. There had been not a word about Jana Palakova….

The Case of the 14

In the aftermath of the entrepreneurs’ protests in early 2008 14 young people had been sentenced to terms for ‘hooliganism and provoking public disorder’. 2 of them have received jail terms of up to 1.5 years while the rest had been sentenced to custodian restraint of up to 2.5 years and huge fines.

The custodian restraint was a comparatively new approach to criminal punishment in Belarus; human rights defenders believed that it had been applied to the figurants of the process in order to test the reaction of the EU: since custodian restraint does not involve imprisonment but a tight control of the police over the roundabouts of the convicted, the international community might have failed to recognize them as prisoners of conscience, the move highly unfavourable for the Belarusan regime seeking support in the West.

For the same reason the purely criminal articles had been used against those 14 young people (i.e. Andrej Kim, the one to receive 1.5 years of imprisonment, had been accused of hitting a policemen in the demonstration although there had been no evidence provided in the ‘trial’ that would prove that). The authorities believed that using criminal articles (like later against Autuchovic and Lavonau for destroying property) in political cases would turn the figurants into mere criminals for the West thus cutting off the chance of recognizing them the prisoners of conscience.

On May 2009 Amnesty International recognized 11 of those as prisoners of conscience. The Office for Democratic Belarus failed to report on this recognition in his May 27 newsletter.

It contains not a single word on Autuchovic and his six weeks on hungerstrike.

Till today, the EU authorities failed to bring their case up the agenda…

Written by Vojcech Sakłovič · comments (0)
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The teacher had tried to explain to the students the historical fact acknowledged even by official governmental historians and openly studied at schools that March 25th 1918 Belarusan National Republic had restored sovereignty after 123 years of Russian occupation.  The nationally-oriented people consider this day to be the real Independence Day of Belarus.

It was this discourse into the history of Belarus that had caused her illegal dismissal.

March 25th is a non-grata date in Belarus of Lukašenka who claims that the independence day celebrations should occur on July 3rd  when in 1944 Soviet army reclaimed Belarusan capital from the Nazis. Pro-Russian authoritarian president of the country would regularly call the attendees of Freedom Day marches ‘degenerates' and ‘grant-suckers' who ‘wish to destroy the country'.

Mrs. Hruździłovič had been allegedly fired at the collective complaint lodged by the parents of the students whom she has narrated a bit on their history. However the centre management had shown her no official paper confirming that complaint existence  the morning next day while acquainting her with their dismissal decision, Belarusan independent paper ‘Naša Niva‘ and Radio Free Europe (in Belarusan) report.

The call of bloggers to all their readers to re-post the news about illegal dismissal (apart from political factor Vanda Darmajan, the Belarusan SOL center director, has violated the Labour Act which demands at least 30-days firing notice) had resulted in more than 200 mails being received by the management of the centre in Minsk; several bloggers have addressed the UK SOL Centre with the request to investigate into the matter in question; the British ambassador in Belarus had also been informed through official website of the embassy and his blog. As a result, the Belarusan centre management had surrendered to the media pressure and contacted Marjana Hruździłovič offering to ‘investigate into the circumstances'. April 1st she was reinstated as a teacher in Belarusan SOL Center, Radio Free Europe reported.

However, the positive development had nothing to deal with the reaction of the UK organization that shares the same name, the British SOL. The relative success of the solidarity action should be attributed solely to the pressure Belarusan bloggers and media mounted on SOL Miensk. At the same time Mr. Yeo, the head of British SOL Centre, in his letter to blogger czalex insisted that the teachers were not allowed to express their political views in classes (I'm curious what he thinks the teacher should have done when one student publicly offended 30% of Belarusan citizens who acknowledge the Freedom Day?) and that she had been fired for ‘inadequate fulfillment of her professional duties', the exact formula used by Belarusan SOL management to fire the teacher.

During Alaksandar Lukašenka's governments dismissing people from their jobs and expelling from universities for expressing political beliefs contrary to those propagated by the state had become a regular practice. However, this is the first case of that kind when this occurs in the branch of a company which is based in the UK, the country for which freedom of speech and expression, I hope, are no empty words.

Written by Vojcech Sakłovič · comments (1)
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Following the bombing, police interrogated a number of Belarusian opposition members and human rights activists and searched their homes and offices. On July 9, four people were detained: Sergei Chislov, Igor Korsak, Viktor Leshchinsky and Miroslav Lozovsky, all members of the White Legion, the youth wing of the Belarusian Union of Military Personnel, banned in 1996.

Andrei Khrapavitsky of the recently re-launched Belarusan American Blog has written (ENG) about the blast and the subsequent arrests - as well as about the Belarusian bloggers' response:

[…] I guess there’s hardly a blogger in Belarus who hasn’t commented on the bomb blast. People are guessing what happened and what consequences it would have. There are lots of different versions, but I doubt there is much sense to recapitulate them here. One is for sure. This is the first major terror act in Belarus. Even if the regime itself is not involved (and most probably, it isn’t as many prominent analysts, like Silitski and Feduta, think), there’s a damn good pretense to use this bomb blast for intimidation of the opposition. The blast is especially handy for this matter, as it happened a few days after the parliamentary race had officially started in Belarus.

LJ user kabierac posted Martin Niemöller's poem “First they came…” on his blog and called Belarusian fellow-bloggers to use the emblem of the White Legion as their userpic image, to express solidarity with the four individuals detained in connection with July 4 blast. His post (BEL, RUS) has made it into the Top 30 of the Yandex Blogs portal.

Many Belarusian bloggers have supported the initiative. LJ user coipish is one of them; according to some reports (BEL), he has also been detained by the police. He wrote this (BEL, RUS):

What you see on my userpic now is the emblem of what used to be the White Legion, whose former members are now being blamed for the recent blast. I join the initiative to support them by at least changing my userpic. I really sympathize with all the victims of the terrorist act, but, unfortunately, the real perpetrators are not likely to be ever held responsible for it :((

LJ user z_hunter chose to use an alternative userpic image - with the same symbol but a different color scheme:

Here is why (a discussion in the comments section on LJ user coipish's post):

z_hunter:

A good emblem, but the colors are bad. Not our colors - black and red. I like the white-red-white variation better.

kostas14:

Traditional for the Belarusian culture and art. […]

z_hunter:

That's right. But red flag is also associated with some not very good periods in the history of the USSR and Germany. And all this had a very destructive and sad effect on our Belarus.

As for the reactions of the relatively apolitical Minsk residents, Kartina Mira (”Picture of the World”) blog, run by a Belarus-based Russian citizen, has this sketch (RUS), featuring a conversation overheard at one of the city's hairdressing salons:

[…]

- Oh, have you heard about the blast? A real terrorist act…
- Yes. Chechnya is way over there, and we are here. They are totally getting out of control.

That is, these events are so unnatural for Belarus that ordinary people come up with only one direct association for the blast: “terrorist act - Chechnya.”

The realities of the country I live in. Quiet, peaceful, nice, stable. Sometimes even boring. But it's so much better than what the neighbors have.

Written by Veronica Khokhlova · comments (1)
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When the Belarusian activist Dzianis Dzianisau was detained for nearly two months on charges of “taking part in manifestations which disturb public order”, the Belarusian blogsphere successfully organized an online (and offline) campaign to raise the bail (15.500.000 Belarusian roubles or $7,300) and got the young political prisoner out of jail. According to Belarusian blogger and activist Zmieter Soltan (listen below to our podcast interview with Zmieter), the campaign involved several Belarusian online communities on LiveJournal: “There were multiple posts with photos of Dzianis, updates on the investigation of his case, on the likely charges which would be put against him, photos of his mother and girlfriend, reports about the event when he was arrested, regular updates on the money raised to date, accounts from visits to the prison.”

The most recent episode of the Belarusian cyberactivism is much more creative and cynical. This time, it came in the form of birthday gift to the country's president, Alexander Lukashenko, after he complained about the anarchy of the Internet. During a visit to the state-owned newspaper Sovietskaya Bielorussiya, President Lukashenko announced his plan to tighten restrictions on Internet and said: “It is time to stop the anarchy on the Internet. We cannot allow this great technological achievement of man to be turned into an information garbage heap.”

The use of the Internet is already restricted in Belarus. According to the OpenNet Initiative report on internet filtering in Belarus, most cybercafés require users to show identification and keep the logs of their online activity. In reaction to Lukashenko’s comments, Belarusian activists from the online community “Third Way” have joined forces and launched the LuNet campaign to raise awareness about the threats to the online free speech that a new media law (please find attached below the Draft Law on information, informatization and information protection and International Expertise ) presently in the works could represent. The LuNet campaign comprises the following: the LuTube video-sharing website, LuJournal blogging platform, Lundex search engine, and a web portal tut.lu.

In this interview with Pavel Marosau of LuNet, we talk about the campaign, Belarusian cyberactivism and the threats to the freedom of online expression in Belarus.

Sami Ben Gharbia: In an interview reported by Reuters, President Alexander Lukashenko said: “It is time to stop the anarchy on the Internet. We cannot allow this great technological achievement of man to be turned into an information garbage heap“. What measures has he taken to stop “the anarchy on the Internet”?

Pavel Marosau: President Lukashenka said that about anarchy in internet during the meeting with his loyal journalists from Sovietskaya Belorussia propaganda newspaper. Despite the fact that he controls all TV, FM and wire radio stations, and most of newspapers, he is still not satisfied. He views the Internet as threat, as neither he nor his men have succeeded in putting the Internet under total control. I think he can't fully understand what the Internet is, as he's a man with old Soviet mentality. And of course, he's afraid of what he can't understand.

His advisors proposed him several ways “to stop anarchy on the internet”. The most evident and dangerous for us is adopting a new law on media in his “pocket” parliament which would oblige all owners of “harmful” websites to register them thus constraining freedom of its owners and authors by equaling websites and press. It would make the repressions and persecutions of websites' owners and authors much easier.

Belarusian authorities have been combating for years with unwanted opinions in internet by persecuting specific people. However, they used some very exotic punitive articles and methods of punishments and it was never done on a regular basis. For instance, me together with my colleagues, Andrei Abozau and Aleg Minich, are still persecuted for slandering Lukashenka by cartoons (www.multclub.org) which is why we have to live abroad at the moment. In August 2007 Andrei Klimau, a notorious Belarusian dissident, was found guilty of calling for overthrowing Lukashenka's regime and sentenced to 2 years of prison for his publication in internet. A famous and harsh critic of Lukashenka, Andrei Suzdaltsev (www.politoboz.com) was possibly poisoned, which resulted in diabetes and partial eyesight loss. Owners of United Civil Party of Belarus website were sued by one Belarusian official claiming damage to his reputation because of an article the website had published accusing his son of abuse of law. As you can see Belarusian authorities are quite creative in persecuting internet dissidents. However, all that methods are no longer enough for them so they need an instrument of mass repressions.

It would be reasonable to put another example of Belarusian civic associations' liberties cut. Before presidential elections in 2006 Belarusian parliament adopted a law which severely increased punishment for being a member of so called “unregistered organizations”. Both in that time and now most of oppositional organizations are not registered as the government simply doesn't want to register them. Just after the adoption of law a campaign against independent observers, youth activists, and politicians was unleashed. People were sentenced to up to two years terms of imprisonment. Belarusian internet community can face the same. This is why we are protesting so actively against those punitive measures inspired by Lukashnka.

Sami: Why did you choose Lukashenko's birthday to launch LuNet?

Pavel: We have chosen that date because Lukashenka is the main initiator and inspirer of repressions against independent internet in Belarus. It would have been just if Lukashenka experienced by himself all amenities of tightly-controlled, no alternative information environment, which is Lunet as we understand it. That's why we gave him Lunet as a birthday present. The Lunet campaign was firstly designed as a small action of protest against regime's repressions toward internet. However, it gained much attention and support in internet community with many different people joining it. That's why we decided to turn it into a constant action with new undertakings in support of independent internet in Belarus appearing all the time.

Sami: Are social networking websites like YouTube and LiveJournal being targeted by censorship? If no, why did you choose them as example to build this funny and original Lukashenko-friendly customized version of Internet? And apart from YouTube and LiveJournal, you've also built a Lundex and tut.lu. What are these websites?

Pavel: Challenges our digital century provides are not easy for Belarusian regime. The authority representatives as I said can't completely understand the essence of internet as their mentality is still of that of a Soviet man. That is why they are examining closely (as they admitted themselves) experience of other states repressive toward internet, such as China and Iran. Especially since Lukashenka has got good relations with them and large arms supply contracts. But I'll repeat it one more time: it is much easier for the regime to put to jail or intimidate certain author of internet publication, to hack or restrict access to a certain website than to introduce a large-scale system of content filtration, especially if it is intended to be applied to such huge communities as Youtube or Livejournal. We have chosen them as well as Yandex search engine and tut.by, the most popular Belarusian web-portal, because they are very popular among Belarusian audience. Belarusians have become attached to them. And, by showing in a satirical and a little bit hypertrophied form what model of internet Lukashenka is about to introduce, what changes they may face if government attempts to put internet under control, we wanted to raise awareness of Belarusian internet users. There's a good saying: “The only thing evil needs for a complete triumph is good people doing nothing”. We wanted other Belarusians and our colleges from abroad to stand for our freedoms and we are sure that it will help to protect them.

Sami: Can you tell us more about the Internet-community “Third Way” and the Bеlarusian cyberactivism, did you also launched other spectacular campaigns like Lunet? Are you providing circumvention tools to the Belarusian internet users? And what is the relationship between activists and the belerussian blogsphere?

Pavel: Third Way internet community (www.3dway.org) is a group of young Belarusians and their colleagues from abroad living in 9 different countries, whose mission is to transform Belarus into a successful and able to compete country with the priority of liberal values, open society, and democratic civil system. We work together by actively using modern web technologies in order to provide Belarusian with information alternative to state propaganda, to look for and involve into cyberactivism talented Belarusian from different countries of the world, to educate them, to create a network of partnership and cooperation with their help, to present our country abroad, and to lobby not Lukashenka regime's interests but those of Belarusian society.  

We are related to Belarusian cyberactivists from the very beginning, we are a part of them, and we are helping each other all the time. Most of Belarusian cyberactivists are concentrated in Belarusian blogsphere, as well as in such projects as Pozirk, Pavetra, BelMov, Moladz.org, Gart, Initsiativa, Bunt… They are not only active in internet but also in offline where they conduct flash mobs and actions of protest.   Since 2005 we have conducted various internet campaigns together with Belarusian cyberactivists communities and youth initiatives: protection of Minsk history (against renaming streets) in 2005 and Hrodna (against demolition of historical center) in 2007, in support of Actions of Solidarity in 2005 and Belarusian satirists in 2006, for freedom of Belarusian political prisoners in 2006. Since May 2007 we have been acting together in the framework of Together For Freedom! Manifesto (www.peremen.info). Both activists of Belarusian NGOs and internet activists are engaged in these campaigns. The Third Way is providing coordination and technical support of these enterprises. As for security measures for Belarusian cyberactivists, we are actively propagating Skype as a convenient and multi-purpose tool. Also we have conducted several workshops on information security for Belarusian civic activists together with our Ukrainian partners and shared our own experience. But progress goes on and Skype is not that safe nowadays so in 2008 we are going to introduce new solutions in the sphere of internet security to our Belarusian partners. The Third Way community is in friends with Belarusian blogsphere from the moment of its coming into life, many notorious bloggers are in friends with us and are active members of our internet community. We have good relations and close cooperation with Pozirk blogging project, Minsk_by blog-community.

Sami: How do you assess the general filtering and censorship situation in your country ?

Pavel: There is a system of content filtering in Belarus. This system based on Chinese technologies was installed into state internet provider Beltelecom's equipment not a long time ago. However, the main purpose of this system is not preventing people from accessing free information but a surveillance for Belarusian internet users. Limiting access to certain websites is not done on a regular basis. During elections, referendums, and other occasions crucially important for the authorities, Belarusian opposition websites are being temporally blocked for Belarusian users, they are hacked and put under some other destructive actions.

Sami: What was the reaction of the Belarusian regime to the Lunet campaign?

Pavel: I think they didn't knew how to react to that internet performance. That is why they have chosen to keep silence. Nevertheless the authorities are continuing preparation of new repressive laws justifying it by “protection of common people's interests”, and are also likely to be preparing show trials against Belarusian cyberactivists.

Sami: What is your next move?

Pavel: We would like to cover this topic during all period the new law on media is being discussed and adopted. Not only in a satirical form of LuNet though we have some fresh ideas in that sphere as well. We would like to cooperate with Belarusian politicians and public figures in order to motivate them to address global community so it would influence the situation with freedom of internet in Belarus. We would like to show some examples of censorship and restrictions of internet in other countries to Belarusian users so they would completely understand what exactly is waiting for them. More than that, we are enforcing cooperation and solidarity between social and political internet projects and blogsphere in Belarus. In the framework of Time to Win civil activists alliance we provide safe and free hosting in Germany and USA to new internet projects on social and political issues, we consult and help new initiatives to make their own websites. Together with our German partners we are preparing new tools of safe communication, anonymization, and filters-avoiding for Belarusian cyberactivists.

Belarusian Draft Law on Information

Written by Sami Ben Gharbia · comments (5)
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