HUMAN RIGHTS IN BELARUS

The school has become not only a place for educational events, but also a platform for the exchange of experience between human rights defenders from Belarus and Ukraine. It helps to find solutions to common problems of human rights protection. Representatives of Ukrainian authorities actively participate in the school’s events and provide assistance. Thus, during the last school, Belarusian human rights defenders had the opportunity to get acquainted with the work of the Department for Monitoring Human Rights in the Activities of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which was presented by Assistant Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine Alla Lepekha.

As Oleg Hulak, the head of the Belarusian Helsinki Committee, noted: “Ukraine has experience in protecting human rights, which we can implement in Belarus right now. This educational course, in my opinion, has become another confirmation of the need to continue the path we have chosen. It is very important that Belarusian youth are interested in gaining knowledge in the field of human rights and democratic institutions, in getting acquainted with the experience of building them. Our joint work allows us to use the potential of Belarusian, Ukrainian and European human rights defenders and experts. It is no less important for the experts themselves to be charged with the optimism and energy of young activists and human rights defenders.”

According to the school expert Vladimir Vaisman, Secretary of the East-West Expert Group (Kingdom of Denmark), the activity of Ukrainian NGOs in transferring experience in human rights protection to Belarus is another confirmation of the significant level of development of Ukrainian civil society, and the significant participation of representatives of state authorities in the school as trainers speaks of their openness and democracy.

The event aroused great interest among the participants, as it consisted of both theoretical classes and a practical part, during which it was possible to get acquainted with the international experience of access to justice. This was facilitated by the participation in the school of judges from the Czech Republic, who presented the Czech justice system. An exchange of views took place on improving access to justice in the countries.

In general, experts, in particular Stasis Kaushinis – Head of the Citizens’ Protection Assistance Fund (Lithuania) and Svitlana Tymchenko – Trainer of the Directorate for Youth and Sports of the Council of Europe, conducted quite original practical classes that allowed human rights defenders to look at various problems of socio-political life from different angles and draw certain conclusions about the effectiveness of certain methods of activity.

This event is the next stage of the joint activities of the Chernihiv Public Committee for the Protection of Human Rights and the Belarusian Helsinki Committee, which involves promoting the development of civil society in the Republic of Belarus and developing cooperation between the third sector of this country and colleagues from Ukraine.

The project is funded by the European Union