When: Saturday, 19. February 2011 14.00-15.00
To: Saturday, 19. February 2011
Where: London, Embassy of the Republic of Belarus, 6 Kensington Court, W8 5DL
Host: English PEN, Belarus Committee
Contact: (enquiries@englishpen.org / 020 7324 2535)
More info: www.englishpen.org/writersinprison/bulletins/belarustakeactionforprisonersofconscience/

The demonstration will be held between 2pm and 3pm on Saturday 19 February outside the Embassy of the Republic of Belarus:

6 Kensington Court
London
W8 5DL

The event will mark two months since demonstrations against the result of the flawed presidential elections of 19 December 2010 resulted in the arrests and detention of over 600 civil society activists in Minsk. The Belarusian secret police arrested 34 members of the opposition, among them presidential candidates, journalists and human rights activists.

They have been charged with ‘organising mass disorder’ and face sentences of up to 23 years. According to our information, those currently in detention have been denied access to their legal advisors and doctors despite injuries that were reportedly inflicted by the KGB during the demonstrations.

The Belarus Committee is calling for the detained prisoners of conscience to be released immediately and unconditionally, and for all charges against them to be dropped.

English PEN is particularly concerned for the numerous writers that have been detained and continues to call for the immediate release of journalists and activists involved in the protests, including Pavel Severinets, Aleksandr Fiaduta and Dimitri Bondarenko. Whilst we welcome their release, we also continue calls for the lifting of the severe restrictions placed on the activities of Vladimir Neklyaev, Natalia Radizna and Irina Khalip. We believe that they, along with other journalists and human rights activists involved in the December protests, were arrested solely for the peaceful exercise of their right to freedom of expression as guaranteed by Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Belarus is a party.

LETTERS OF APPEAL

Please send letters of appeal to the Belarusian authorities on behalf of our cases of concern. For more details please click here.

LETTERS OF SUPPORT

If you would be interested in sending send letters of support to prisoners and their families please contact cat@englishpen.org

SIGN THE PETITION

Please sign and circulate the Zone of Silence petition for the release: http://zoneofsilence.org/sign-the-petition/

The Belarus Committee

English PEN is part of The Belarus Committee which seeks to help the people of Belarus chronicle violations of international law and universal human rights and campaigns at home and abroad to end them.

The Committee seeks to provide a platform and coordination for joint action of association organisations. Together we will be pressing the government of Belarus to meet international human rights standards, in particular on the rights to free speech and free association. We believe that the people of Belarus must be free and unfettered to choose their own destiny through immediate free and fair elections according to international standards and declared by international monitors, and that all Belarusians must be allowed fair and equal opportunity to campaign in the new elections.

The Belarus Committee aims to ensure that:

a)    All prisoners of conscience currently held in Belarus are immediately released without condition;
b)    Prisoners have access to appropriate medical care, legal assistance and justice;
c)    There is support for the families of those imprisoned;
d)    There is an end to threats against those helping prisoners of conscience;
e)   That is international solidarity with the families of those detained, Belarusian non-governmental organisations, lawyers and civil society;
f)     That there is international awareness abroad about the current situation in Belarus through media work and public action.

The committee is comprised of representatives from Anglo-Belarusian Committee, Association of Belarusians in the UK, Amnesty International, ARTICLE 19, English PEN, H20 Lawyers, Index on Censorship, International PEN, alongside Sir Tom Stoppard and Irina Bogdanova on behalf of the families of those detained.