European Commission is suggested to update "black list" of Belarusian offic

Next month, the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the European Union countries will decide on whether to abolish or to prolong visa sanctions with regard to Aliaksandr Lukashenka and a series of Belarusian officials after analysis of progress of Belarus in the sphere of democracy and human rights.

The monitoring of development of the situation in our country since November 2008 till September 2010 has been prepared by the Assembly of Democratic NGOs, Belarusian Association of Journalists, Belarusian Helsinki Committee and other non-governmental organizations. Its aim is to provide the most objective information in view of the upcoming decision of the EU Council of Ministers, says the Chairman of the Belarusian Helsinki Committee Aleh Hulak.

Aleh Hulak: "Many Belarusian, and in the first place European, politicians and experts had great expectations with regard to liberalization announced in the middle of 2008. It is important that people should not mistake the wish for the reality".

As for the reality, it is not optimistic at all, in accordance with the specialists' analysis.

Aleh Hulak: "There has been no changes in the system, it is still hostile to the civic society, to journalists, to democracy and human rights in general. The authorities tried to decrease obviousness and brutality of repressions, there became less of them, less of big fines and long detentions. However, we cannot say they won't repeat tomorrow, as the officials received no signals the system had changed so they would not work any other way".

As it comes from the words of the human rights activist, the first condition of the European Union  for improvement of relationship (absense of political prisoners) has not been fulfilled.

Aleh Hulak: "We still have the problem of political prisoners in Belarus. We consider all the people sentenced in connection with Autukhovich's case political prisoners".

In addition to the above, the human rights activists remind that Maxim Dashuk, sentenced upon the "case of 14" is still serving punishment, Siarhej Kavalenka is sentenced to restriction of freedom, Mikhas Bashura is detained.

As for the amendments of the electoral legislation so it would meet OSCE requirements (the second EU condition), the "amendments have not touched such key problems as granting of transparency during counting of votes and providing the opportunity to constructively observe the voting process, counting of votes and summing up the results", stated in the monitoring.

As for the right for freedom of word and the media (the third condition), the problem of access to the information has "unbeliavably increased" recently, according to the Chairperson of the Belarusian Association of Journalists Zhanna Litwina.

Znanna Litwina: "Among the long-term problems there are the following: problem with equal economic conditions for media with different types of property, dissemination of non-governmental civic and political publications, accreditation of journalists working for foreign media, and now we also have Internet censorship after the Decree No. 60 has come into force".

As for the right of freedom of assembly and association, as well as legal state of non-governmental organizations (fourth condition), a series of separate cases of registration of NGOs did take place, says the Chairman of the Executive Bureau of the Assembly of NGOs Siarhej Lisichonak. However, "legal status is still an unachievable dream for political and human rights organizations", stated in the monitoring. Moreover, the Article 193-1 of the Criminal Code which prohibits activisty on behalf of unregistered organizations, is still in force.