The event, initially planned as a conference, was more of a discussion, a debate and an honest exchange of opinions amongst 15 participants; some of them were renowned professionals in the HR field. Barys Zvozskau, a conference organiser and the Belarusian HRH president, elaborated on conference goals and its possible outcomes.
What was a pretext for this meeting? Was an urgent necessity or rather a scheduled event?
This conference was meant to be very informal. And its primary goal, of course, is an exchange of expertise in our field of work. We had 15 participants and practically all of them are in the human rights defence. Obviously, we had quite a bit to discuss. All of our participants come from the same region but different countries: 7 from Belarus, 3 from Lithuania, matching number from Ukraine and 2 from the Russian Federation.
Does such a geographic proximity mean that all of these countries face similar challenges in human rights?
I would not say that. Certainly, there are related problems and comparable mechanisms, with which we are trying to solve these challenges. However, I would rather say that in each of the represented countries there is a set of its own distinct and significant differences. For instance, when in Lithuania and Ukraine civil society has possibilities to pressure the authorities for changes in legislation; in modern Belarus it is utterly impossible. And the Russian Federation, unfortunately, at the moment exhibits the same tendencies as Belarus. It is very disconcerting. That is why out debates were so useful. It gave us an opportunity to study our countries ‘from the outside’ and to find new alternative ways of action in human rights. Moreover, our participants could get ‘the first hand’ information about some particular cases during the face-to-face interaction. Whereas, previously, they had to rely on mass media for that.
In other words, debates and discussions are the project aims?
It is a very important aspect indeed. Overall, as announced our meeting was addressing problems of the preventive HR defence. We were trying and are trying to find answer whether it is possible at all. It like in health care: in majority cases it is easier to treat maladies before hand, before they really develop into illnesses. But the practice shows that, as in health care and in our profession, prophylactics, so to speak, is an exception than a rule. People address problems post factum, when something has already happened, especially in criminal cases.
Given what you just mentioned, is there any sense at all in talking about preventive actions?
That is why we are jointly trying to find appropriate mechanisms. We had to work with the society at large. This is our main priority. The logic here is very simple: to prevent something there has to be knowledge of all possible consequences. In short, we have lots to work on.
Roman Romanov, a conference participant and a representative of the Renaissance International Foundation Rule of Law program in Kyiv, stressed that the discussion main accent was on the HR situation in Belarus. “These kinds of events are useful for improving relations and creating networks amongst HR professionals in the region. Given that Belarus is not a part of an authoritative international community, however, we, working in our own countries, could raise attention to the Belarusian problems.” At the same time Mr Romanov pointed out that certain instruments used in Ukraine could not be implemented in Belarus and visa versa. “A Ukrainian HR defender, for instance, doing his/her job out in the open will never be afraid of a president or a PM the way they do in Belarus. But it is possible that a Ukrainian would be more scared of an ordinary police officer. We are talking about different systems here.”
According to the conference organisers, the most important goals were not concrete practical outcomes but rather the comparative analysis. To compare is very close in meaning to understand and to accomplish. Similar events will be happening regularly.
