Human rights results of Ice Hockey Championship

“We demand that the IIHF and its President René Fasel break their silence and take action. In particular we are fiercely critical of the fact that there has been no action taken by the IIHF to prevent the ice hockey world championship being misused as a means of propaganda by the Lukashenka regime. We condemn this unacceptable commingling of sport and politics by the Belarusian state propaganda machine under the guise of a sporting event. “, – is written in  the statement , signed by Foundation for the Development of Democratic Initiatives (Poland), Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights (Poland), JEF Europe – Young European Federalists (Belgium), Libereco – Partnership for Human Rights (Switzerland), Association „Human Rights in Belarus“ (Germany), Östgruppen (Sweden), People in Need (Czech Republic).

Human rights defender “The government can run its repressive machine when they need it and in any such occasion”

Valiantsin Stefanovich (left), Deputy Chairman of the Human Rights Centre “Viasna”, summarized the human rights results of the Ice Hockey World Championship, which was held in Minsk from 9 to 25 May: “There were several statements by the Minister of Internal Affairs. He said that there could be no preventive detentions and that all that was invented by human rights defenders.But the practice, which we encountered, shows that there was a campaign launched by the authorities to arbitrarily detain citizens. Moreover, we can note certain trends here. First of all, administrative charges for several offenses at a time, which made it possible to prosecute for people a longer period – up to 25 days of arrest. Second, repeated administrative charges immediately after release, as it was with Mr. Rubtsou from Homel. We have seen that the detainees (representatives of completely different political groups: activists of the Young Front and anarchists, as well as fans of different football clubs) were previously involved in some activities. For example, the fans of FC BATE Borisov, who supported the Ukrainian Maidan and were prosecuted for posting photos on social networks. And by and large, even today we do not know the extent of everything that happened in the country during the tournament. Since all the people who came out of the detention centre said that there were so many detainees that they had to be taken to Zhodzina [temporary detention at prison No. 8 – Ed.], as it was during the political campaigns of 2006 and after December 19, 2010.

Indeed, we observed, as the Minsk city executive committee had promised, clearing the city of “antisocial elements” – they isolated homeless persons and prostitutes, while alcoholics were sent to activity therapy centers where they will be for a year and a half “cure” for alcoholism using forced labor… I repeat that we’ll probably never know the dimensions of all this. And what unites all of these categories of citizens is lack of justice. The authorities did not bother too much to search for evidence against these people and very often isolated them without regard to the offenses on their part – just because of the campaign underway. This directly indicates that the established system in Belarus leads to the systematic and systemic human rights violations. The repressive machine starts on a certain occasion and at the appropriate political conditions of the authorities and works flawlessly performing its tasks. That is, all this shows that the government can run its repressive machine when they need it and in any such occasion.