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On March 25, Belarus marks Freedom day – an unofficial holiday that commemorates the creation on that date in 1918 of the Belarusian People’s Republic (BPR). In Minsk, authorities suggested the rally should be held at a different time and place from those asked by opposition leaders, so the latter withdrew the appeal. Authorities considered any alternative mass gathering unauthorized. March 25th in Minsk ended with detention of hundreds protesters.

Updated 27 March: As protests continue in Belarus, the President of Belarusian Human Rights House Tatsiana Reviaka was detained on 26 March along with 9 other people, at Kastrychnitskaya square. Tatsiana Reviaka has now been released.

48 organizations from 24 countries signed the letter, where they strongly condemn the continuing wave of detentions and harassment of peaceful protesters, journalists, human rights defenders, civil society activists, anarchists and opposition party members in Belarus.

We, representatives of Belarusian human rights organizations, state a significant deterioration of the country’s human rights situation and note the following:

On 17 March 32-year-old Aliaksei Mikhalenya was sentenced to death.

Human Rights Houses Foundation wrote to the Central District Court in Belarus to appeal to the Court to drop charges against prominent human rights lawyer Leonid Sudalenka, which relate to his participating in and monitoring and reporting on recent peaceful protests. The Court heard his case on 17 March, and delivered a warning to him and charged him fees.

We invite to celebrate Freedom Day together in Vilnius on 25 Match (Saturday).

The authorities in Belarus have arrested more than 100 people in connection with peaceful protests in several cities, following an outcry against a law imposing a tax on unemployed Belarusians.

Protests against the President’s Decree No. 3 “On the prevention of social encumbrance” were held on Sunday, 26 February in four major cities of Belarus. Now participants of the “Marches of Non-Parasites” are massively becoming subjects to the administrative violation protocols.