Latest

In an intervention in Geneva, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Bosnia-Herzegovina announced that its country will fulfil its obligations to end discrimination based on ethnicity to access the presidency.

У ходзе сустрэч у Кіеве з 18 па 20 лютага Спецыяльны дакладчык па Беларусі атрымаў магчымасць сустрэцца з міжнароднымі і беларускіх медыя-экспертамі, а таксама праваабаронцамі і ахвярамі парушэнняў правоў чалавека ў Беларусі.

The EU highlighted the issue of human rights in Belarus as important for discussion at the next session of the UN Human Rights Council. One of the speakers during the session will be the Special Rapporteur on human rights in Belarus, Miklós Haraszti, who met with Belarusian media on 18 February.

In meetings in Kyiv from the 18 to 20 February 2013, the Special Rapporteur on Belarus had the occasion to meet international and Belarusian media experts as well as human rights defenders and victims of human rights violations in Belarus.

A court in Lidzbark Warmiński ordered prosecutors to continue the investigation in a case of men beaten by officers at a police station. The court instructed the prosecution to interview a new witness in the case.Krystian Jacyno and Kazimierz Wołkowski had been beaten while interrogated at the District Police Headquarters in Lidzbark Warmiński.

The HFHR requested Justice Minister Jarosław Gowin to name information or circumstances which allowed him to assess the evidence collected in the investigation of CIA secret prisons in Poland on the basis of which a decision on indicting former Head of Intelligence Agency Zbigniew Siemiątkowski was taken.

The ECtHR found that Poland violated the prohibition of inhuman and degrading treatment in respect of a disabled inmate. The Court proclaimed judgement in the case of D.G. v. Poland. The applicant was detained in 2001. He is paralysed and claims that he developed serious health problems in detention. Because of that it was absolutely necessary to provide him with adequate personal hygiene products and medical accessories such as a catheter, which, as the applicant argues, were given to him too rarely considering his needs.

Poland’s legislators continue to work on the draft new Foreigners Act. In November last year the HFHR presented its remarks to the bill. In late January 2013 the Ministry of Interior hosted a consensus conference to discuss the remarks made by NGOs.

Liubou Kavaliova, the mother of Uladzislau Kavaliou, who was executed for Minsk metro bombing, was declared the “Person of the Year 2012 in Vitsebsk”. Vitebsk is a Belarusian city, where Uladzislau Kavaliou and Dzmitry Kanavalau, both accused of the terrorist act organization, grew up.