Human rights defenders informed the United Nations about arbitrary detentions ahead of Ice Hockey World Championship - 2014

Human Rights Center “Viasna” has informed the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention about the preventive detentions of Belarusian citizens ahead of Ice Hockey World Championship - 2014.

In general, the activists are being detained on purely fabricated, similar grounds such as “disorderly conduct" and “disobedience to the law-enforcement officials”. The courts conduct administrative trial proceedings formalistically, implicitly trust the law-enforcement officials and don’t take account of the evidence provided by the defence. Human rights organizations have repeatedly qualified such detentions as groundless and politically motivated. As of 4 May Zmicer Dashkevich, Aliaksandr Frantskevich, Yury Rubtsou, Leanid Smouzh, Mikalai Kolas, Dzianis Karnou, Aliaksandr Kurbatski, Aliaksandr Stukin, Valeryi Tamilin and Uladzimir Novikau have been sentenced to long-term arrests.