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Recently mass media have started publishing the statements by some European officials about the positive tendencies and the political liberalization in our country. In particular, at the beginning of this week Jose Manuel Pinto Teixeira, Head of the European Commission Representation in Ukraine and Republic of Belarus, talked about ‘a certain progress’ on the democratization of Republic of Belarus. How do the Belarusian human rights activists evaluate the situation in the country on the eve of the consideration of renewal of the sanctions of the EU towards the official Minsk? You can learn about it from our interview with the representative of the Human Rights Center Viasna Valiantsin Stefanovich.

United Centre of Initiatives for Belarus (JuBIC), Swedish International Liberal Centre (Silc), European Humanities University (EHU) and Belarusian Human Rights House in Vilnius (HRH) announce a new call for applications to participate in the election observation project in 2010.

On 18-20 September the first graduates of the Bring International Standards Home program gathered in Vilnius Human Rights House. One of the participants offers his reflections and impressions about the meeting.

From 28 September to 9 October the OSCE conference on Human Dimension is taking place in Warsaw. Amongst other topics Belarusian problems are on the agenda, in particular the question of torture. Representative of the official Minsk declared their willingness to repeal criminal penalties for activities of unregistered NGOs.

This report is the third of a series designed to inform policymakers and other interested parties about developments in the Republic of Belarus during the ongoing Dialogue Process with the EU. The Dialogue Period is an opportunity to bring Belarus’ legislation and respect for human rights and freedoms back in line with European and international standards and practices.

Belarusian “Iron Lady” Natallia Piatkevich who hosted a meeting with a group of media freedom NGOs in Minsk had a hard task to defend the country’s Soviet-style media regulation system. The group, including London Human Rights House’s representative Rohan Jayasekera, yielded to no persuasion: they urged Belarusian authorities to bring the media environment in compliance with international standards.

The Belarusian Assembly of NGOs has issued its preliminary assessment of the regime’s activities in terms of improving the situation in the field of NGOs in the context of expiry of another period of EU sanctions towards Republic of Belarus.

The Belarusian authorities indirectly conceded that having criminal penalties for activities of unregistered organisations was something abnormal. Hopes were elevated when the Ministry of Justice relied to a call from NGO Civic Republic of Belarus (Czech Republic) about abolishing the infamous Article 193.1. However, later journalists learnt that the official, who signed the letter, had not actually read it.

It was another mission within the project “Election Observation: Theory and Practice”. This time students of EHU and other Lithuanian higher schools, as well as members of Belarusian and Swedish NGOs were accredited as international observers at Parliamentary Election in Norway on 14 September. After observing polls in Eastern Europe, some participants were impressed by the “nearly perfect” Norwegian style of elections. Still, some things remain to be improved.