20.12.2011 FEMEN activists beaten and shaved bald in Belarus

Preliminary information appeared about whereabouts of the Ukrainians, who disappeared in Belarus yesterday.

As charter97.org website has learned, the girls managed to call their friends and say they were in the Yelsk district of the Homel region. They say they were beaten and left there. Their money and documents were seized.

20.12.2011 Minsk courts convict participants of yesterday’s protest

The courts of the city of Minsk have considered the administrative cases of the detained participants of yesterday’s rally marking the anniversary of the 19 December 2010 post-election protest, sentencing them to 3 to 15 days of arrest and fines.

20.12.2011 Homel resident facing travel restrictions nine months after acquittal

On 20 December, Homel resident Yauhen Dzedushkin was not allowed to cross the Belarusian border as he was going to Vilnius.

20.12.2011 Ales Bialiatski’s chair left vacant at 2011 Report on the Protection of Human Rights Defenders presentation in Yerevan

On the 14th of December the Chairman of the Board of “Civil Society Institute” NGO and FIDH Secretary General Artak Kirakosyan together with CSI NGO president Arman Danielyan presented the 2011 Report on the Protection of the Human Rights Defenders around the world. In Armenia, as in other countries, during the presentation of the report the seat of the speaker Ales Bialiatski was left vacant as a call for setting him free.

20.12.2011 Baranavichy activist loses job over opposition activities

On 20 December, the administration of Baranavichy-based Transfer Lines Plant has refused to extend the employment contract of local leader of the “Fair World” Leftist Party Viktar Tsiapin, despite of acute shortage of engineers at the factory.

20.12.2011 Ales Bialiatski’s meeting with dying father possible on paper only

The wife of imprisoned Viasna leader Ales Bialiatski has received another reply from Chair of Minsk Pershamaiski District Court Mrs. Tamara Vysotskaya on the possibility of Bialiatski’s meeting with his father who is said to be on his death-bed.

20.12.2011 KGB puts pressure on LGBT group

On 7 December, officers of the KGB Hrodna office interrogated an 18-year-old activist of the GayBelarus LGBT human rights project, offering him cooperation. On 19 December, he was summoned for a “conversation” again. However, the activist declined the invitation.

20.12.2011 Some fifty persons detained in yesterday’s Minsk protest

Some fifty protesters were detained during a rally marking the anniversary of the 19 December 2010 post-election protest staged in central Minsk last evening.