European Network of Election Monitoring Organizations (ENEMO) protests the arrests domestic observers

European Network of Election Monitoring Organizations (ENEMO) protests the arrests of four domestic observers from Civil Initiative Partnership (member organization of ENEMO) prior to the presidential elections in Belarus. Partnership activists were arrested by the Committee for State Security (KGB) on February 21st and are being held under criminal charges of running an unregistered civic organization to observe the upcoming elections in Belarus. At the same time equipment and documents from Partnership offices were confiscated by the Belarusian KGB.
ENEMO condemns these actions as a crack down on local civic observers by Belarusian authorities which violates all international conventions on human and political rights and therefore requests release of civic activists. ENEMO calls upon Council of Europe, OSCE, UN and international community to urge the Belarusian authorities to release these local observers.
Peter NOVOTNY
ENEMO Secretary General

ENEMO GENERAL INFORMATION
ENEMO ΠEuropean Network of Election Monitoring Organizations Πis a group of 18 leading civic organizations from 16 countries of Eastern and Central Europe and Central Asia. ENEMO member organizations have monitored more then 140 national elections and trained more then 180 000 observers.
ENEMO seeks to support the international community's interest in and support for democracy in the OSCE region, to assess electoral conditions and the political environment, and to offer accurate and impartial observation reports. ENEMO international observation missions evaluate the electoral process using international standards for democratic and fair elections (1990 Copenhagen Document) and benchmarks in the assessed country's legislation and constitution.
On October 27, 2005, ENEMO together with 20 other leading intergovernmental and international organizations endorsed a set of Principles for International Election Observation at the United Nations. Other signatories included the OSCE, European Commission, Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the UN Election Assistance Mission and other international organizations.