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As part of advocacy work on Azerbaijan towards the United Nations and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, HRHF is organising events in Geneva (16 June 2015) and in Strasbourg (23 June 2015 ).

On 28 May, 2015 the political prisoner Yury Rubtsou was sentenced to two years imprisonment in a penal colony on charges of evasion of serving the initial sentence . Mr. Rubtsou was serving a sentence of 1.5 years of imprisonment in the open-type correctional facility for allegedly insulting the judge.

On 28 May, the presentation “Psychiatry and Human Rights in the Republic of Belarus: Law and Practice” was held in the Barys Zvozskau Belarusian Human Rights House. Experts from Belarus, Poland and the United States provided information on the current human rights situation in the field of psychiatry in Belarus and gave recommendations for changes that will help improve this situation.

The Belarusian Human Rights Center Viasna, the Swiss-German association Libereco – Partnership for Human Rights and the independent watchdog organization Freedom House have launched a joint online petition to demand the release of all political prisoners from Belarusian president Lukashenka.

On 28 may at 13:00 the Barys Zvozskau Belarusian Human Rights House will host a presentation “Psychiatry and Human Rights in Belarus: Law and Practice” with the participation of experts from Belarus, Poland and the United States. The presentation will provide information about the current human rights situation in the field of psychiatry in Belarus: the legal system, legislative practices, specificity of the Belarusian reality. The international experts will in turn provide their prepared recommendations.

On 13 May human rights defender, Chairman of the Homel branch of the NGO “Legal Initiative” Leanid Sudalenka (right) has been called for questioning as a witness in a criminal case.

The trial of a political prisoner Mikalai Statkevich on changing the regime of serving his sentence to prison confinement took place on 4 May in Shklou penal colony №17. The basis for the regime change are claimed to be numerous violations of internal regulations of the colony and disobeying the requirements of the colony administration. In a letter to his wife Maryna Adamovich, Statkevich wrote that he had been placed in cell-type premises.

On 4 May Belarus presented the report to the Human Rights Council in the framework of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR). This is the second cycle of the UPR for Belarus, so the country reported on the implementation of recommendations that were received after the first round of the UPR in 2010.