Ales Bialiatski, the chairman of the board of the Human Rights Center Viasna (Spring) that was liquidated in October 2003, received an answer from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to his recent inquiry. He 
asked the MFA to explain what measures had been taken for implementation of the ruling of the UN Human Rights Committee concerning registration of Viasna.
On 24 July 2007 the UN Human Rights Committee adopted Views on the individual communication #1296/2004. The Committee thinks that the information it possesses confirms the fact of violation of Article 22, point 1 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights by a member country. The committee concluded that Ales Bialiatski and the co-authors “are entitled to an appropriate remedy, including the re-registration of Viasna and compensation”.
“It is also under an obligation to take steps to prevent similar violations occurring in the future”, – the Committee stated.
Still, Belarusian authorities ignored the Committee’s Views. “The Belarusian government did not implement the demand of the UN Human Rights Committee despite the fact that Belarus is a member of the UNO. We addressed the MFA with a question why it wasn’t done,” said A. Bialiatski.
The Belarusian diplomats in charge to control the implementation of 
the international undertakings of Belarus, disagree. As follows from the formal answer signed by the first deputy minister of foreign affairs Ihar Petryshenka, they do not consider the UN Committee decision obligatory: “We take into consideration that the views of the UN Human Rights Committee are recommendatory”, was stated in the answer.
“Thus the MFA does not consider the decision of the UN Human Rights Committee obligatory for implementation and, pitifully enough, is not going to implement it. To my mind, it is an act of disrespect to the UN from the side of the Belarusian government,” concluded Mr Bialiatski.
Viasna is a Belarusian national human rights NGO with the central office in Minsk and regional organizations in the majority of Belarusian cities. It has about 200 members all over the country. The declared goals of Viasna are legal defense of citizens, civic and human rights education, promotion of democracy and human rights, and support of civic initiatives in the sphere of human rights.
After liquidation in 2003, Viasna has been trying to re-register under a new name Nasha Viasna (Our Spring). In spite of international support for the liquidated NGO, the Belarusian government has repeatedly refused to re-register it.
