Viasna to Take Part in OSCE HDIM Conference
Representatives of the Human Rights Center Viasna Ales Bialiatski, Uladzimir Labkovich and Andrei Paluda are going to take part in the Human Dimension Implementation Meeting of the OSCE.
The meeting takes place in Warsaw, between 19 and 30 September 2016, with two plenary sessions scheduled per day and side events.
On September 22, representatives of Belarusian human rights organizations – the Assembly of NGOs, HRC Viasna, the Center for Legal Transformation Lawtrend, the Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ) and the campaign Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections (HRDFE), with the support of the Belarusian Human Rights House in Vilnius will hold a side event on the results of the parliamentary elections in Belarus. Participants of the side event are chair of Viasna Ales Bialiatski, coordinator of the campaign HRDFE Uladzimir Labkovich, ex-chairperson of BAJ Zhanna Litvina, director of Lawtrend Volha Smalianka, and lawyer of the NGO Assembly Yury Chavusau who is going to be the moderator.
On September 23, Ales Bialiatski is going to take part in the side event on the problems of independence of the judiciary and human rights advocacy in the Eastern part of the OSCE area. The organizers of the side event are Netherlands Helsinki Committee and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), with joint program the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders (OMCT). On September 28, Andrei Paluda, coordinator of the campaign Human Rights Defenders against Capital Punishment, is going to participate in the side event dedicated to human rights situation in Belarus. He is going to dwell on death penalty issues regarding Roma people and hate speech in state media which adds up to discrimination and intolerance in society.
The Human Dimension Implementation Meeting (HDIM) of OSCE participating States is Europe's largest annual human rights and democracy conference. It is organized every year by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) as a platform for 57 OSCE participating States, Partners for Co-operation, OSCE structures, civil society, international organizations and other relevant actors to take stock of the implementation of the OSCE human dimension commitments, discuss associated challenges, share good practices and make recommendations for further improvement.
