An overview on the freedom of association in Belarus was presented at the OSCE Human Dimension Meeting

At the annual OSCE Human Dimension Meetingwasheld a side event "Freedom of association and the legal environment for civil society organizations in Belarus” in Warsaw on September 26. The organizers of the event were the Assembly of Democratic NGOs of Belarus and the Center for Legal Transformation.
The aim of the event was to familiarize the participants of an OSCE conference with the alternative report, which was filed by Belarusian organizations in the Human Rights Council of the United Nations under the preparation for the second round of the Universal Periodic Review of Human Rights. Belarus is going to pass the Universal Periodic Review for the second time in the 22 th session of the Human Rights Council, which will be held in Geneva in April-May 2015.
In the parallel event human rights defenders focused on the implementation of the recommendations by the Belarusian government that are for improving the legal environment for the activities of non-governmental organizations. These recommendations were given to our country during the first round of the Universal Periodic Review in 2010.
Participants of the presentation focused attention of the national delegations of OSCE member states on those recommendations, which are presented in an alternative report. They stressed the importance of addressing the Government of Belarus only specific and unambiguous recommendations, implementation of which is easy to estimate and it is difficult to simulate. Speakers called on government delegations, presented on the meeting, to base their questions and recommendations to the Government of Belarus in the second round of the Universal Periodic Review on the proposals contained in the submitted alternative review on Freedom of Association.
This side-event was the sixth consecutive event held by the Assembly of NGOs at the annual OSCE Human Dimension Meeting: presentations of this kind are held by the Assembly of NGOs every year since 2009.