Sign personal guarantee for Ales Bialiatski!

Ales Bialiatski, Chairperson of the Human Rights Center Viasna and vice-President of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), was detained on 4 August 2011 within the framework of a criminal case brought under Part 2 of Article 243 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Belarus, "Concealment of income on a large scale". This article envisages up to seven years of imprisonment with confiscation of property.

Ladies and gentlemen, Viasna needs Your solidarity!

We are starting a campaign to collect pledges for Ales Bialiatski from all citizens. These pledges will be sent to the prosecuting authorities of Belarus. The procedure of bailing is provided by Article 121 of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Republic of Belarus.


Legal background

Article 121 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Republic of Belarus provides bailment as one of the measures of restraint. The essence of this measure is that persons who are more than 18 years old, address the procuracy with petitions asking to change the restraint to an imprisoned person to a written undertaking not to leave. The people who are bailed out can be put in custody again if they violate the conditions, and those who singed the pledges can be punished with fines. A person is not bailed automatically after the collection of the necessary number of pledges. However, this is a very important condition for the release of people from jail. It also demonstrates our solidarity to the investigation and the courts. The people who want to sign pledges must fill in the appropriate blanks in their own hand.

The procuracy can release Ales Bialiatski on the basis of Your pledges.

We are holding this campaign together with our partners, Belarusian human rights defenders, and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH). Pledges will be collected throughout the world, and we are confident that many international celebrities will subscribe to this statement.

We set ourselves the goal to collect at least 1,000 pledges only in Belarus.

For many years HRC Viasna has been defending every citizen who got in trouble when the state violated his/her rights and ignored the principles of morality and legality. We were with You in courts, making everything possible not to leave political prisoners alone in jail. For the years of our work we have helped to thousands of people writing appeals and statements. We have done everything possible to spread information about the situation in Belarus abroad.

We promise to continue our human rights activities irrespective of the development of the events.

But now we ask for Your help.


You can sign pledges and send them by registered mail to our address:

220012, Nezalezhanasts Avenue, 78a-48, Minsk, Belarus
Telephone: ++ 375-17-331-08-44

One of the attached files is the blank of the pledge in Russian (which we ask You to print out, put in the necessary data and send to us), and the other is translation of the blank into English.