HUMAN RIGHTS IN BELARUS

Among the topics discussed during the seminar: implementation of human rights norms and decisions at the international and national levels, international forms of dispute resolution, protection of the right to fair justice, combating torture, cruel, inhuman and other treatment degrading human dignity, the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, etc.

Given the fact that the Republic of Belarus refused membership in the Council of Europe, much attention was paid during the sessions to the issues of guaranteeing human rights in the UN system. A separate part of the training was devoted to the consideration of the procedure for submitting complaints, procedural rules and analysis of the practice and cases of the UN Human Rights Committee regarding Belarus, in particular in the context of articles 14, 17 and 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Additional protection mechanisms within the framework of the UN Committee against Torture and the European Court of Human Rights were also considered.

Given the seminar’s focus on maximum involvement of international specialists with practical experience in building civil society, the training was taught by leading European experts: Krasimir Kanev – Professor, Head of the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee; Adam Bodnar – Head of the Legal Department of the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights (Poland), Associate Professor of the Department of Human Rights at the Faculty of Law and Administration of the University of Warsaw; Lyudmila Ulyashyna – Coordinator of the Human Rights Buildings Foundation (Norway), Brigitte Dufort – Expert of the Netherlands Helsinki Committee.

This event is the next stage of the joint activities of the Chernihiv Public Committee for the Protection of Human Rights, the Netherlands Helsinki Committee 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 with colleagues from Ukraine and the European Union.

The project is funded by the MATRA program of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands