Belarus: Freedom for Human Rights Defenders | Human Rights Watch
(Berlin) – The Belarusian authorities immediately released the human rights defenders who were imprisoned on trumped-up politically motivated charges, Human Rights Watch said today. 23 human rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch, have united to campaign to free seven Viasna, a Belarusian human rights center, and hundreds of other defendants in politically motivated criminal cases.
Campaign #FreeViasna (#FreeViasna) starts on September 17, 2021 – on the anniversary of the beginning of the repressions in Viasna, which has been documenting human rights violations in Belarus for almost a quarter of a century. The attack on the defense center was a logical development of the general offensive by the authorities on civil society, accompanied by criminal cases and imprisonment of oppositionists and peaceful demonstrators, the elimination of dozens of independent organizations and the media, as well as pressure and deprivation of licenses of lawyers who are not afraid to take on politically motivated cases. …
Alexander Lukashenko’s government has declared war on civil society and is ruthlessly suppressing any dissent, ”said Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. To withstand the pressure of repression ”.