One of the detainees managed to call human rights defenders and inform them about the detention. According to her, the observers were detained by the police outside the Jazz Hostel on Shchadryna Str. Among those detained were the EOTP project director Anastasiya Matchanka from Belarus Watch (Lithuania), as well as students and lecturers of the European Humanities University.

The EOTP project is jointly implemented by Belarus Watch, the European Humanities University and the Belarusian Human Rights House in exile in Vilnius. Over the past five years, the project has offered young people an opportunity to gain practical skills via actual observation of elections. 

The project partner organizations call on the Belarusian authorities to immediately release the young observers and project coordinators. We want to emphasize the fact that all the project participants are citizens of the Republic of Belarus therefore they have an indisputable constitutional right to observe the elections in their country and to defend the right to free expression of the will of the voters.

Also, we, as representatives of organizations registered in the Republic of Lithuania, call on the Lithuanian authorities to demand that the young people were released and their rights observed.

The fact that the detention took place on the eve of the press conference, which was about to be held in the Belarusian Human Rights House in Vilnius at 1 p.m. on 25 September, raises the major concerns. At the press-conference the project participants were about to make public the results of the independent election observation in Belarus.

We consider it outrageous that the Belarusian authorities use the tactic of “preventive detention” in order to prevent the truth about what is happening in Belarus and about the methods by which the Parliament is formed from spreading.

Election Observation: Theory and Practice project team

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