Solidarity with Hrodna human rights defenders transcends state borders

Ukrainian human rights defenders declared an Internet action in support of the members of the Human Rights Center "Viasna" Uladzimir Khilmanovich and Viktar Sazonau and the member of the Belarusian Helsinki Committee Raman Yurhel who had been fined for publishing a photo of themselves with a portrait of the political prisoner Ales Bialiatski on the web.

The ruling of the Leninski District Court of Hrodna Vital Letski, according to which they were fined a total of 4.5 million rubles, as well as the very fact of such court proceedings, caused indignation among Ukrainian human rights activists. Photos, police insinuations and backdated reports have all possibilities to persecute public activists, ignoring all legal norms, states the author of the Internet-appeal.

"One can make a direct conclusion, that this court ruling is another political order of the system, which is just afraid of its citizens, and the Law "On Mass Events in the Republic of Belarus" is used just as a tool for its implementation. The authorities are afraid of the portrait of Ales Bialiatski and brochures with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They are afraid of everything which unites the people, makes political prisoners feel that others support them and wait for their release, gives public activists the opportunity to continue struggling for freedom and human rights and supports the journalists who strive for objectivity despite all hardships of their profession.

Let's support Belarusian human rights defenders together," call participants of the Ukrainian network of human rights movement.

Participants of the second International Human Rights Course for youth:


On 9 January the Ukraian human rights defender Mikhail Lebedz "held" a series of "one-man pickets" near the state organs of the Republic of Belarus to express solidarity with Hrodna human rights defenders.