Siarhei Dikman: Council of Europe opens new chapter in relationship with Belarus

The first initiated step is the reopening of the Council of Europe Information Office in Belarus.

Siarhei Dikman, the councilor on the CE programmes, the representative of the Directorate General of Human Rights and Rule of Law in Strasburg believes that the collaboration between the Council of Europe and Belarus from now on will only develop. He made this statement in the interview with the EuroBelarus Information Service.

- A new chapter is opened in the relationship with Belarus by the Council of Europe. Council of Europe action plan in relation to Belarus, approved by the Belarusan Foreign Ministry, was designed. Viachaslau Jarashevich, a new leader of the Council of Europe Information Office, an associate professor of the Belarus State University, was appointed recently.Everyone can appeal to the office for the information now. And I hope that the new leader will be active and will be able to help us to implement different programs of the Council of Europe.

Siarhei Dikman notes that “human rights is not the only problem that the Council of Europe is dealing with; it also covers the problems of cybercrime, corruption and human trafficking”.

- Belarus is just about to ratify the convention on resistance to human trafficking; thus, in the scope of this and other conventions we hope for close collaboration with the Belarusan authorities. My visit was related to the presentation of the book “Criminal justice and European Convention on Human Rights”, which includes the information from the seminar that took place three years ago. And only now we finally managed to publish it to present in the BSU together with the representatives of the Institute for professional development of judges, attorneys, courts, teachers, officials from the Foreign Ministry.

This is what we start from – gradually, step by step. But we hope that the collaboration between the Council of Europe and Belarus will only develop from now on.