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Journalist Pavel Sharamet was killed in a car bomb attack in Kyiv on 20 July 2016. His murder drew public attention to the fact that journalists work in a very difficult situation.

An appeal on behalf of the “Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections” was sent by one of the campaign coordinators to the Central Election Commission’s chairwoman Lidziya Yarmoshyna on 6 July. This anti-discrimination step is particularly important, because the subjects of the electoral process are actively using the Belarusian language, thinks Valiantsin Stefanovich, the author of the appeal.

Today, on 20 July, the car driven by the famous Belarusian journalist Pavel Sharamet was blown up in Kiev. The Belarusian HRH deeply mourns the death of Pavel Sharamet and expresses condolences to his family.

The “Bring International Standards Home” (BISH) project celebrated its 10th anniversary with the start of the new academic training cycle for Belarusian human rights defenders in Belarus, from June 3–10 at the Educational Human Rights House Chernihiv. BISH is a project within Human Rights House Foundation’s International Law in Advocacy (ILIA) program.

On 7 July the Amnesty International human rights organization presented the report titled “It’s enough for people to feel it exists: Civil society, secrecy and surveillance in Belarus”. According to the report, the Belarusian authorities are using phone networks run by some of the world’s biggest telecoms companies to stifle free speech and dissent. Austrian, Turkish and other telecommunications companies help them to conduct illegal surveillance.

On the 12 of July at the UN, high-level representatives from States, civil society and the private sector discussed the human rights situation in the world. There was also a first televised live debate with the candidates for Secretary General at the United Nations, which was open for questions from the public.

The United Nations Human Rights Council reminded the international community about the situation with human rights in Belarus today by adopting the Resolution that highlights a wide range of human rights violations in this country.

The UN Human Rights Council has adopted a resolution renewing the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on Belarus for another year. The resolution also raises a wide range of human rights violations in the country and urges Belarus to enact reforms and to fully cooperate with the Special Rapporteur.

Human rights defenders do not rule out a political motive in persecution of the blogger, but in order to get a clear vision of the situation they need an expert evaluation of his texts. However, at the moment it is difficult to call the case transparent.