Today official Minsk will be suggested to change the situation with freedom of associations

Second round of Universal Periodic Review (UPR) for human rights is to take place on May 4 in Geneva. Lawtrend and Assembly of NGOs prepared an alternative report to the UN Human Rights Council (HRC).

The procedure of the second round of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) for human rights will take place within the frames of the 22^nd session of the UN Human Rights Council (HRC). The first round of UPR procedure resulted in 93 recommendations for Belarus, and only 53 of them were considered acceptable by the official Minsk. It is the implementation of these recommendations that will be discussed during the second round of the UPR.

Aliaksei Kazliuk, the lawyer of the Legal Transformation Center “Lawtrend”, notes that the procedure is still new, “and only now we are getting a clear understanding of how this mechanism should be used for the countries and, accordingly, how civil society can be included in this process”.

 “Why is it so important for us? As is known, Belarus is not very willing to take part in any kind of international procedures that have to do with human rights. Some of these procedures are merely ignored by the state; however, in the situation with the UPR it is vice versa – the state and Foreign Ministry in particular state that participation in UPR is prioritized at the international arena. For us it is an additional opportunity to work in the human rights sphere both inside the country and outside it”, - Aliaksei Kazliuk said.

“The procedure includes countries that ask questions to submit recommendations for human rights in each particular country, - Aliaksei Kazliuk tells about the technical side of the UPR procedure. – But there are no specific demands to the states – UPR procedure involves all the UN countries and all the countries might recommend and ask questions to the other countries. And that is what, basically, makes the procedure the most global and universal from all that exist now in the world. It is important for us that NGOs also take part in the process: civil society can submit their assessment of the situation with human rights in Belarus and take part in discussions between the UPR rounds and talk about the results of implementation of recommendations. That is why we prepare alternative reports”.

Yury Chavusau, a lawyer Of the Assembly Of Pro-Democratic NGOs Of Belarus, informed that the extended round of questions will be asked on May 4: “Now we will pay a lot of attention to the topic of the Special Rapporteur to Belarus”. “This is the question that isn’t included in the spectrum of recommendations, but it is one of the main ones within the frames of cooperation between Belarus and UN human rights institutes. Assessing the procedure of drawing the national report published this February by previous recommendations we can say that the level of NGOs’ participation in this procedure was unsatisfactory. Well, certain consultations were performed, but as compared to the situation of the 1^st round in 2010, now experts from non-registered human rights organizations (Valiantsin Stefanovich from the HRC “Viasna”, Yury Chavusau from the Assembly Of Pro-Democratic NGOs Of Belarus) were not invited. In 2010 we had an opportunity to discuss the content of the national report with the representatives of authorities; now we were deprived of such opportunity. Well, we managed to inform Lawtrend, Belarusan Helsinki Committee, and some other organizations about the stance of the civil society. But in general, if we talk about the level of consideration of the human rights defendants’ recommendations, we can state that they were almost neglected”, - said Yury Chavusau.

According to him, the national report can be assessed as the one prepared with the minimal cooperation with the NGOs, which has negative affect both on its content and on the adequacy of evaluation of the situation with human rights.

The main event of the procedure of the 2^nd round of the UPR will be interactive dialog “Governments ask questions, Belarus answers them in the real time”.

After the interactive dialog “we will organize a parallel event dedicated to the problem of freedom of associations and the legal status of non-commercial organizations in Belarus”. “There we would be able to give quick and active assessment to Belarus’ answers and hope that this assessment will be taken into consideration by the UN Human Rights Council when elaborating recommendations for the second round of the UPR”, - noted Yury Chavusau.

Volha Smalianka, the head of the Centre for Legal Transformation “Lawtrend”, emphasized that when getting acquainted with the national report “we can make a sad conclusion that statements about the freedom of associations and legal status of non-commercial organizations in Belarus are discussed very superficially there”. “The report has no serious analysis of recommendations that would be recognized as acceptable by Belarus and no serious analysis of legislation and its application”, - she said.

The core of the report, notes Volha Smalianka, is reduced to stating statistic data about the number of registered organizations in Belarus. “The document has invalid information about accessibility of normative acts in the sphere of freedom of associations for the broader public, since access to such information placed at the national legal portal is charged”, - the head of Lawtrend said.

Volha Smalianka notes four main problems in the sphere of freedom of associations and legal status of non-commercial organizations in Belarus:

“First, the order of registering an NGO. If an NGO is for some reason unwanted by the state our legislation provides for denying registration to this organization. And registration practice permits us saying that the state is broadly applying this possibility.

Secondly, ban to work of non-registered organizations and criminal liability for work on behalf of the non-registered organizations. Since 2008 people haven’t been behind the bars for that; however, the presence of this article allows issuing warnings – and they are.

Third. Belarusan legislation considerably restricts access to NGOs’ funding from abroad, and we are to face even bigger toughening of legislation. There is also a problem with internal funding.

The fourth problem is the presence of considerable restriction of the right of public unions to realize other rights, such as possibility of realizing the right to participate in the peaceful assemblies and to the freedom of expression”.

The alternative report to the UN Human Rights Council “Freedom of association and the legal status of non-commercial organizations in Belarus” has “direct recommendation in accordance with which freedom of associations and legal status of NGOS in Belarus should be led in the right direction”. “If the state is really interested in improving the state of the civil society organizations in Belarus, we need to take the whole set of actions to change legislation and its implementation”, - Volha Smalianka said.