Report on monitoring of the March of Outraged Belarusians in Minsk. 17 February 2017

Conclusions:

1. The mass event was of a peaceful character (an assembly should be deemed peaceful if “its organisers have professed peaceful intentions and the conduct of the assembly is non-violent”). The participants did not appeal to violence; no weapons were present.
2. It was not possible to identify the law enforcement officials since a considerable part of them were not wearing their uniforms. This fact prevents from distinguishing between participants and non-participants; identifying their roles and related responsibilities and their functions as well as determining a specific police officer to turn to in case of emergency situations.
3. A big number of police officers in civilian clothes did not guarantee quality performance of their positive obligations for the realisation of the right to peaceful assemblies. For instance, they did not provide conditions for safe and continuous crossing of the crossroads; they did not guard most impressive groups of demonstrators who could be attacked by counter-demonstrators or by other participants of the action. The attacks on the group of anarchists, to the same extent, could probably have been organised on the part of the law enforcement officers in civilian clothes. This fact is indicated by the specific appearance of the attackers, people with radio standing around and the passivity of other police officers. Please note that according to the Guidelines of the OSCE ODIHR "Human Rights Handbook on Policing assemblies", designed specifically for the law enforcement officers, the basic principles of policing assemblies are the following: possession of information, assistance, communication and differentiated approach to the participants of a mass action.

Monitoring methodology

Throughout several years the Belarusian Helsinki Committee and the Human Rights Center ‘Viasna’ have been regularly monitoring mass events in Minsk on the basis of a thoroughly elaborated methodology, which consists of: recruiting and teaching observers principles of civil control, standards of peaceful assembly and methodology of observing; filling in forms during on-site observations, processing of forms and preparing of a monitoring report. Forms of mass events observations have been jointly developed by human rights organisations. They include questions on the capability of observation for observers and mass media in relation to the attitude of organisers, mass events participants, police officers and the presence of ambulance. Observers may be admitted to observation only by accepting and abiding by rules and principles of the observation (independence and political neutrality; description of facts, not personal opinions, non-interference in the event observed; commitment to the rule of law: rejections of all forms of violence and discriminatory practices; correct behaviour). Whilst executing their duties observers are kept separately from participants. Observers are marked by an ‘observer’ badges and blue jackets.

Preliminary information

On February 10th the organisers of the March filed an application to the Minsk city executive committee on behalf of Aphnahel Yahen Iharavich, Niakliayeu Uladzimir Prakopavich and Statkevich Mikalai Viktaravich informing on their intention to hold a “March of Outraged Belarusians” with the starting point of Kastrychnitskaya square at 8 pm. The application did not contain a route of movement and contact details of the organisers, as well as a planned number of participants.

At the same time the procedure of the application itself is a common and allowed practice for the realisation of the right to peaceful assembly.

The information on the March was widely spread on the Internet through social networks and the paper ads.

During the mass event on 17th February 2017 nine observers were continuously executing the observation on-site. The observers had been trained accordingly and were marked in a proper way.

The course of the mass event

The following facts were observed throughout the event:

The mass event was held on 17th February, 2017 from 5:40 pm to 7:20 pm. The gathering of the participants commenced at 5:30 pm. At 6 pm the number of the participants comprised of at least 2,000 people. At 6:30 pm upon the signal of the organisers the column started to move along the avenue to Nezalezhnastsi Square towards the building of the Ministry of Taxes and Collections. No less than 2,500 people were moving in the column. The organisers urged people to move on a red light and called upon the traffic police officers on allowing that. However, the latter were breaking off the movement of the column at the traffic lights. Finally, the column gathered at Nezalezhnastsi Square at 6:45 pm. A separate column represented the group of anarchists with the drums, flags and 2 banners. At 7:15 pm the participants began to disperse by groups of people.

A big number of the active participants of the procession were masked, closing their faces with scarves and bands.

At the beginning of the movement of the column one of the activists lit a flare by the metro station "Kastrychnitskaya".

The precise number of law enforcement officials is difficult to establish since any identification markings on a considerable part of the officials were absent. For example, at least 6 traffic police officers were identified along the moving column and at least 50 people in civilian clothes with distinctive features like radios and headphones. Likewise, the representatives of the Minsk police were in civilian clothes and unmarked. At least 6 people were videotaping using portable hand-held cameras.

Around 6:15 pm at Kastrychnitskaya Square there was a skirmish near the speakers, as a result of which one person was withdrawn from the crowd by the participants with shouts of "provocateur".

When the head of the column approached an underground pedestrian tunnel near "McDonalds", Mikalay Statkevich announced through a megaphone the request to police officers to let the people cross the road on a traffic way. The police officers in civilian clothes in response formed a chain and blocked the exit from the pavement so that people did not go out on the traffic way. That resulted in a jam. The police officers ordered everyone to go through the tunnel and did not react on the notice of a possible danger as stated by the organisers. When the jamming occurred Statkevich asked participants to use the tunnel but be careful.

At 7:10-7:20 pm a woman started to pick on the anarchist column aggressively. She confused them with "banderites” and was pulling the top of their stretch shouting and waving off a camera. After verbal exchanges she was taken aside. Police officers in civilian clothes were watching the incident and did not intervene.

- Another incident has been noted. At 7:25 pm, two athletically built men snatched an anarchist flag from the hands of the activists near a building on Savetskaya street, 17 and ran away across the corner (observers possess a video footage). Around 7:30 pm a group of anarchists attempted to get onto bus 115 at the stop "Nezalezhnastsi Square". A policeman with a radio in civilian clothes entered the traffic way in front of the bus and would not let the bus move. At the same time, several officers in civilian clothes started to pull out and push the activists out of the bus hitting them randomly at the same time. It went over to a skirmish, which resulted in most of the anarchists getting off the bus. They moved to the middle of the square where an unknown person snatched a folded banner "Enough leeching off us, state" out of their hands. After that a group of about 15 anarchists formed a chain, crossed the road through an underground pedestrian tunnel to the other side of the road and left at the next bus without impediments.

At least 20 media representatives were actively shooting pictures and videos and communicated with the participants.

No obstacles were identified to reach the place of gathering by personal and public transport; there was no interference with the work of media; there was no interference with the work of the observers.

No appeals to violent actions on the part of the organisers and participants were noticed.

The following banners were noticed: “That’s enough!”, “Who is the main parasite here? The President!”, a banner with two fig signs and a caption “Here you are”, “Enough leeching off us, state”, “Parasites of all countries, Unite!”, a poster “The main parasites are in Drazdy”[1], a poster “Moustached parasite! When are you going to burst?!” with an image, a poster “As grabbers and bureaucrats in vain did they grow up in front of our eyes, robbing the country and people, like shaking an apple tree daily”, a poster with a black hand in a fist against white background. There were 3 pots, which the participants were chattering in. The column of anarchists had 8 drums and other devices.

The following symbols were used: white-red-white flags, 2 flags of Independent Trade Unions, 1 flag with a symbol of anarchists against black background, 1 flag of European Union, approximately 10 flags of anarcho-communists (red and black).

The following slogans were used: “Long live Belarus!”, “No!”, “Constitution”, “Solidarity”, “Go away”, “No to Decree No. 3”, “Don’t be afraid”, “Freedom”, “No to Lukashenko! No to dictatorship!”, “Away with Lukashenko”, “Freedom to people!”, “Lukashenko – a parasite”, “No to Kachanova, Lukashenko, Kobiakov”, “No to Empire, yes to Belarus”, “Enough of illegal exactions!”, “Enough of illegal power!”, “Bread, salt, soil, freedom”[2], “Go away”, “It’s time to resign!”.

Recommendations

To Organisers:

To denote a route, a planned number of participants, contact information for the purposes of coordination of the protection of a mass event at the application.

To promote a more compact localization of the participants at the suspension of movement, organizing protection squads and other measures.

If possible, to agree in advance on the continuous movement with the police.

To law enforcement officials:

In accordance with Article 5 of the Law of the Republic of Belarus "On the Internal Affairs Bodies", "the activities of internal affairs bodies shall be public." Guided by this standard, we suggest that all officials whilst guarding public order during mass events must wear uniforms and be identifiable by means of identification (badges);

To designate a contact person from the number of police officers for the communication with observers, media and organisers of mass events;

To ensure a continuous movement of the column of participants at the crossroads with the stopping of vehicles.

To legislature:

To initiate amendments to Belarusian legislation to bring it into compliance with international standards of peaceful assemblies.

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[1] One of the official Presidential Residences.

[2] A line from a famous poem by a Belarusian poet Yanka Kupala “Nia byc skotam”.