When: Wednesday, 19. January 2011 13:00
To: Wednesday, 19. January 2011
Where: Vilnius, Latako str. 3
Host: Belarusian Human Rights House
Contact: (byc@hrgroups.org / +370 5 212 7703)
They also will announce preliminary working results of the International Observation Mission of Committee of international control over the human rights situation in Belarus.
Press conference will be held just after a meeting of NGOs with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania and the participants will present recommendations for the Government of Lithuania, the Presidency of the OSCE.
A month after the presidential election and dispersal of opposition demonstrations in Minsk the information about interrogations, searches in the offices of human rights defenders, journalists and opposition actors continue. Thirty-one people are imprisoned pending trial on charges of organizing riots. The official Minsk continues to build new versions of those events.
One of the reactions of civil society to what is happening was to create a Committee of international control over the human rights situation in Belarus. The International Observation Mission of the Committee, working directly in Minsk, monitors the situation, assists local human rights defenders and covers the events. It consists of people from various NGOs from OSCE countries, replacing each other during work in Mission. The Committee itself includes more than 20 organizations who agreed to join forces for continuous control over the human rights situation and the nomination of joint claims to normalize the situation, including using the mechanisms of the OSCE.
Lithuania became the president of OSCE for 2011, and it underscores important role of the Lithuanian government’s position in changing the situation in Belarus.
The languages of the press conference are English and Russian.
For more information please contact: byc@hrgroups.org
