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Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights launched a new guide for civil society on how to follow up HR recommendations. It may offer good examples on how to increase the efficiency and visibility of international procedures and standarts at the national level.

Belarus is the last in Press Freedom Index among the countries of the “Eastern Partnership” program of the European Union. Due to the continuous occurrence of disturbing signals about situation with mass media the International Observation Mission sent a special representative to Belarus.

Belarus’ finest civic activists have prepared the By-ROOM – a creative civic space to coincide with the Vilnius Summit. The event, held November 28-29, will draw attention to civic activism and action with Belarus – the European Union’s closest geographical neighbour that remains a stubborn outlier in the framework of the Eastern Partnership.

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation with human rights in Belarus, Miklós Haraszti, said that Belarus has to guarantee a series of human rights in order to give effect to the right to elect and to be elected.

On 26-27 October Vilnius hosted the Third Belarusian Human Rights Forum. The forum was attended by more than 150 human rights defenders from Belarus and other countries, activists of civic and human rights organizations as well as relatives of political prisoners.

The alumni of “International Law in Advocacy – Electronic Human Rights Education for Lawyers” project made an educational visit to Strasbourg on 15-18 October 2013.

The 3rd Belarusian Human Rights Defender Forum will be held on 26-27 October 2013 in Vilnius in the Holiday Inn Vilnius Hotel (Seimyniskiu str. 1). The Forum participants will be representatives of the Belarusian human rights organizations, their international partners and international human rights bodies.

On 10 October the 11th anniversary of the World Day Against the Death Penalty was marked. Civil society activists from different countries reminded the international community about the absurdity of this kind of punishment and the cruelty of executions.

– I am deeply disappointed by the rulings of Belarusian courts which continue to hand down death sentences to the country’s citizens, The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Belarus, Miklos Haraszti, says, expressing his regret regarding the decision of the country’s Supreme Court.