The Human Rights Center “Viasna”

News for September 2016

12.09.2016 OSCE ODIHR: Belarus elections efficiently organized, long-standing systemic shortcomings remain

The 11 September parliamentary elections were efficiently organized and there were visible efforts to address some long-standing issues, but a number of systemic shortcomings remain, the international observers of the OSCE ODIHR mission concluded in a preliminary statement released today.

12.09.2016 Parliamentary Elections. September 11, 2016. Analytical Report (full text)

The elections did not meet a number of key international standards for democratic and free elections, as well as the country’s electoral legislation. First of all, the findings are due to the lack of equal access to state media for all candidates, lack of impartiality of election commissions, facts of abuse of administrative resources in favor of the pro-government candidates, numerous facts of forcing voters to participate in early voting, non-transparency of some election procedures for observers.

12.09.2016 Invitation to press conference on results of election observation

Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections announce a press conference on September 12 on the results of monitoring the elections to the House of Representatives of the National Assembly of the sixth convocation.

11.09.2016 Parliamentary Elections: Report on Election Campaigning

The candidates were not provided with equal rights; pro-government candidates enjoyed better conditions for campaigning: they made extensive use of the administrative resources, including electronic and print media.

11.09.2016 Parliamentary elections: Final report on early voting

Early voting remains one of the systemic problems of the country’s electoral process and creates opportunities for the use of administrative resources and other manipulations.

10.09.2016 Parliamentary elections: Analytical report on fourth day of early voting

364 short-term observers of the campaign "Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections" are involved in daily observation of the early voting at 182 polling stations across the country.

09.09.2016 Human Rights Watch calls on Prosecutor General of Belarus not to extradite Turkmen journalist

Human Rights Watch has written to Belarus’ Prosecutor General Aliaksandr Kaniuk, asking him to ‘immediately release’ journalist Chary Annamuradov, whose extradition has been sought by Turkmenistan.

09.09.2016 Parliamentary elections: Analytical report on third day of early voting

In accordance with the Electoral Code, early voting opened on September 6.

09.09.2016 Activists protest forced early voting

A group of human rights defenders and students' rights activists have launched an online petition to protest against the forcing of Belarusian students to vote early in this year’s parliamentary elections.

08.09.2016 Parliamentary elections: Analytical report on second day of early voting

In accordance with the Electoral Code, early voting opened on September 6.

07.09.2016 Reliability and control: ‘Labor collectives’ as election trend

Year after year, state-owned enterprises and institutions have helped provided human resources to form the election commissions, ‘cooperative’ observers and loyal candidates. The tradition rests upon the country’s legislation, which defines a company’s staff (‘labor collective’) as a key actor of the electoral process, a fact opposed by many independent experts as an anachronism of the Soviet past.

07.09.2016 Parliamentary elections: Analytical report on first day of early voting

In accordance with the Electoral Code, early voting opened on September 6.

05.09.2016 Weekly Analytical Report. August 29 - September 4

A significant level of campaigning activity is demonstrated by the pro-government candidates, who still use the administrative resource, including state-controlled electronic and print media.

02.09.2016 Human Rights Situation in Belarus: August 2016

On July 14, the law enforcement officers detained Uladzimir Kondrus, a resident of the town of Rudziensk, Minsk region. Kondrus was taken into custody and charged under Part 2, Art. 293 of the Criminal Code (rioting). On August 10, the country’s leading human rights organizations issued a statement to recognize Uladzimir Kondrus a political prisoner and to demand his release.

01.09.2016 OSCE ODIHR issues interim report on election observation in Belarus

The OSCE ODIHR official website published yesterday an interim report by an observation mission deployed in Belarus to observe the parliamentray elections scheduled for September 11. The report covers the period from 2 to 26 August 2016.