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The European Parliament has adopted its Recommendation on the EU’s policy towards Belarus reiterating the need for the unconditional release of all political prisoners as a prerequisite for a gradual lifting of EU sanctions and for an upgrade of relations between the European Union and Belarus.

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Belarus, Miklós Haraszti, will visit Vilnius the 12-13 July 2013 to hold consultations with representatives of Belarusian civil society on the human rights situation in the country.

The Belarusian civic activist Andrei Haidukou was newly convicted of “attempt to establish cooperation with the special service, security service or intelligence service of a foreign state” and sentenced to 1.5 years in prison.

26 June is recognized as International Day in Support of Victims of Torture. Despite the fact that there is no term “torture” in the Belarusian legistation, the citizens of the country have to face this problem quite often.

Through the use of modern technology and innovative learning tasks, the Human Rights House Network project “International Law in Advocacy. Electronic Human Rights Education for Lawyers” provides the opportunity for participants to remotely gain the knowledge and develop the skills of judicial protection, based on the concept of human rights in the framework of the courses prepared and accompanied by international and national experts.

In mid-June, Hrodna and Homel regional courts have passed two death sentences. These court decisions have been criticized by a number of international bodies and human rights organizations.

The final conference of the project “International Law in Advocacy. Electronic Human Rights Education for Lawyers” was held in Vilnius from 13 to 15 May. Belarusian advocates and lawyers along with their colleagues from Azerbaijan, Moldova, Russia and Ukraine, who during this year were performing tasks, discussing the problems and getting new knowledge within the framework of the project, have become participants of the conference.

The fact that the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on Belarus was extended have been revealed on June 14 after a vote of delegations that are now part of the UN Council on Human Rights. Delegations from 26 countries voted for the resolution containing the proposal to extend the mandate of Miklos Haraszti (right) with 3 votes opposed and 18 abstained According to the regulations the resolution was adopted by a simple majority vote.

The trial against Andrei Haidukou (right) accused of “high treason in the form of intelligence work” began in Vitsebsk on 12 June. During the investigation, there was almost no information on the case, the trial is closed and journalists and human rights can only speculate.