HUMAN RIGHTS IN BELARUS

The main element of the project’s activities is the holding of human rights schools for representatives of Belarusian civil society. To date, 9 schools have been held. Among the topics considered in the lessons: human rights, democracy, freedom of association and freedom of peaceful assembly, actions of NGOs to protect public interests, experience in the development of democracy and human rights in the EU countries and Ukraine, experience in implementing new institutions for the observance of human rights, etc.

The majority of the school participants are human rights defenders, public activists, lawyers from different regions of the Republic of Belarus. A significant part of the participants are young people. Based on the difficult situation regarding the possibility of participating in public life in the country and the existence of criminal prosecution in Belarus for membership in unregistered associations of citizens, the school program is largely adapted to the needs of this target group.

Due to significant obstacles from the official authorities of Belarus, educational activities have to be carried out on the territory of Ukraine. But this approach with the transfer of training to another state provided a unique opportunity for school participants to get acquainted with the Ukrainian and European experience of building democracy.

Ukraine, despite the transition period, already has something to share with its neighbors and transfer best practices in the field of developing democracy, human rights, good governance, etc. Therefore, the school program is aimed at maximum involvement of European and Ukrainian experience in building a legal state and establishing the rule of law. The Chernihiv Public Committee for the Protection of Human Rights organized a program of visits within each school in order to demonstrate in practice the positive experience of implementing democratic transformations in Ukraine. School participants visited the Supreme Court of Ukraine, the State Judicial Administration of Ukraine, the High Economic Court of Ukraine, the Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Chernihiv Oblast, the Court of Appeal of Chernihiv Oblast, Chernihiv Oblast State Administration, Chernihiv City Council, the Department of the Security Service of Ukraine in Chernihiv Oblast, got acquainted with the work of the Department for Monitoring Human Rights Compliance under the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, etc. Many visits were made to non-governmental and international organizations. In particular, the participants had the opportunity to get acquainted with the work of the Information and Documentation Bureau of the Council of Europe in Ukraine, receiving a fairly substantial set of educational and informational literature.

It is also worth noting that representatives of state authorities and local self-government bodies of Ukraine always respond very well to proposals for visits and acquaintances, which speaks of the efforts of Ukrainian authorities to be open to the public. Unfortunately, in Belarus there is no such opportunity for cooperation between non-governmental human rights organizations and their activists with the authorities. However, according to the school participants, the Ukrainian experience in establishing such relations, which was also not easy, especially before 2004, will allow them to eventually introduce the same mechanisms of interaction between all sectors of society in Belarus for the purpose of building democracy in the country.

In addition, the participants were actively assisted as trainers and experts by many Ukrainian and European specialists with practical experience in building civil society. The following teachers and trainers of the schools have acted at various times: the executive director of the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union Volodymyr Yavorsky, the chairman of the board of the same organization Arkady Bushchenko, the director of the Respublika Institute, and in the past, the head of the “Ukraine without Kuchma” campaign, Volodymyr Chemerys, the well-known Ukrainian lawyer Vyacheslav Yakubenko, one of the leaders of the civil network “OPORA” Oleksandr Lomako, advisors to the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine Kateryna Levchenko and Alla Lepekha, judge of the Court of Appeal of Chernihiv Oblast Oleksandr Demchenko, the head of the Judicial Association of Ukraine “Foundation for the Promotion of Justice” Kateryna Tarasova, etc. Given the school’s focus on the maximum dissemination of European experience in the development of democracy, the following teachers also served as teachers: Secretary of the Expert Group “East-West” (Denmark) Volodymyr Vaisman, expert of the Dutch Helsinki Committee Renata Hartman, Head of the Citizens’ Protection Assistance Fund (Lithuania) Stasis Kaušinis, Director of the project “Promoting active participation of citizens in combating corruption in Ukraine” Juhani Grosman, Trainer of the Directorate for Youth and Sports of the Council of Europe Svitlana Tymchenko

etc. A number of trainers from the Republic of Belarus also participated in the work of the schools: Chairman of the Belarusian Helsinki Committee Oleg Hulak, famous Belarusian lawyer Harry Pohonyailo, columnist of the newspaper “Belarusians and the Market” Pavliuk Bykovsky, etc.

The presence of such professional experts allows us to establish the educational process within the project at a fairly high level, as evidenced by the feedback from the participants. All school events aroused the expected interest of the participants, as they consisted of both theoretical classes and a practical part, during which it was possible to get acquainted with the international experience of building democracy and respecting human rights quite widely. Given the fact that Belarus refused membership in the Council of Europe, much attention was paid during the classes to guaranteeing human rights in the UN system. In particular, separate classes were devoted to the cases of the UN Human Rights Committee regarding Belarus.

The acquired skills were useful to the school participants at home, in Belarus. Most of them, upon their return, became organizers or participants in various advocacy campaigns, other public interest campaigns in the most diverse spheres of society: from housing and communal services problems to combating the illegal expulsion of students from universities. Many of these actions have already achieved some positive results.

The implementation of the project continues. Now the next stage has begun, during which the intermediate results already obtained are being processed, in particular in the issues of conducting schools. Based

on the conclusions of the current study, a unified training program for representatives of Belarusian civil society with the necessary set of training materials and supplements will be developed. Experts from EU countries are currently being actively involved in this process.

The project remains open to cooperation with other civil society organizations.

The project is funded by the European Union.