Political Repressions in Belarus in 2007

09.01.2008. Tags: administrative trials, human rights defenders.

During the last year Belarusian human rights activists carefully collected information about different forms of repressions that were used by the authorities for political persecution of public and political activists. Today the Belarusian version of www.spring96.org presents an important result of their work – the list of the citizens who underwent administrative persecution in 2007. Soon the website will also be updated with information about criminal cases against political opponents and other kinds of persecution.

The list of administratively persecuted contains more than 600 cases which were registered in Belarus in 2007. It makes the statements of the Belarusian authorities about the absence of political repressions in the country ridiculous. This list shows the real attitude of the state machine to political pluralism in the society and is an undeniable document showing the totalitarian nature of the present regime.

Sometimes it was quite hard to gather detailed and sufficient information about administrative penalties, that’s why in certain cases this information is incomplete or imprecise. We hope that participants of all the described events of democratic resistance, our readers and other interested persons will help to fill the blank spaces in this list.

So far it is the first attempt to make the most complete database about administrative persecution in Belarus including the surnames of the victims, information about the essence of their cases, surnames of judges and witnesses.

The database is in Belarusian and has different search positions: one can search by the victim’s name, by the date, the court, the name of the judge, the accusation article, the term of imprisonment, etc.

Thus, a part of this unique project is over. Still, the human rights activists of Viasna will continue collecting information about political persecution and repressions against public activists in Belarus.

http://spring96.org/persecution