News
Human rights defender Tamara Chikunova voices concern over retention of death penalty in Belarus
In the beginning of February, Tamara Chikunova, a well-known advocate of the death penalty abolition in Uzbekistan, paid a visit to Belarus. During a meeting with members of the HRC Viasna she told them about the problems one can face while defending the right to life. Chairperson of the Mothers against Death Penalty and Torture NGO also expressed her concern over the retention of the death penalty in Belarus and stated her wish to facilitate its final abolition. Read more…
MP: life sentence can be as inhuman as death penalty
Members of the House of Representatives think it may take ten years to abolish the death penalty. Read more…
39% of Belarusians support death penalty abolishment
39% of Belarusians support the idea of abolishment of the capital punishment and 48% are against it. This is the result of a recent survey conducted by the director of a sociometric laboratory “NOVAK” Andrei Vardamatski. Read more…
PACE welcomes creation of task group on death penalty at Belarus’ Parliament
Mevlut Cavusoglu, the chairman of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) welcomes the creation of the task group to study death penalty at the National Assembly of Belarus. He made this statement in his speech to the members of the assembly, BelTA learnt from the PACE press service. Read more…
The Death Penalty in Belarus in 2009
The year of 2009 failed to become a turning point in the abolition or the declaration of a moratorium on the death penalty in Belarus. Belarus is still the only country in Europe and in the ex-Soviet area that keeps passing and executing death sentences. At the same time, for the first time in the history of independent Belarus the issue of the death penalty appeared in the forefront of wide public attention. Read more…
Mongolian President announced death penalty moratorium
Mongolian President Tsakhia Elbegdorj has announced a moratorium on the death penalty, and called for the punishment to be abolished. Read more…
Viktar Huminski: ‘Belarus has directly come to starting thorough, transparent and wide discussion on abolishing the death penalty’
Activists of the campaign Human rights activists against death penalty in Belarus received an answer to their address to the Chamber of Representatives of the National Assembly of the Republic of Belarus. Read more…
Authorities oppose UN’s consideration of communication by Zhuk’s mother
According to human rights activist Raman Kisliak, the Belarusian government appeals against the admissibility of communication filed by mother of death convict Andrei Zhuk, claiming that the facts mentioned are false, namely he allegedly failed to exhaust all domestic remedies. Read more…
Minsk not to abandon death penalty soon
Belarus will not be able to abandon the death penalty in the near future, says Barys Batura, chair of the Council of the Republic of the National Assembly, and therefore the authorities are not so far ready to implement the requirements of the Council of Europe and declare a moratorium on capital punishment. Read more…
Amnesty International calls on Lukashenka to stop executions
The Amnesty International human rights organization calls on President Lukashenka to save two Belarusians from executions. Andrei Zhuk and Vasily Yuzepchuk are currently awaiting execution in Minsk. Their appeals have been turned down. Both men have applied for clemency to President Alyaksandr Lukashenka - but Amnesty International knows of only one case in which clemency was granted since President Lukashenka took office in 1994. Read more…
Hary Pahaniayla: ‘The state cannot be forced to commit murders itself’
Hary Pahaniayla, lawyer of the Belarusian Helsinki Committee, expressed his view against the death penalty, in the framework of the campaign ‘Human Rights Activists against the Death Penalty in Belarus.’ Read more…
Human rights defenders pass petition to authorities
On the International Human Rights Day representatives of the Belarusian human rights community passed to the Presidential Administration a petition calling to abolish the death penalty as a kind of punishment that contradicts to the right to life guaranteed by the Constitution and international human rights treaties. Read more…
Valiantsin Stefanovich: ‘No referendum is needed for the abolition of the death penalty, the legislation needs to be amended instead’
‘Legally, no referendum is needed for the abolition of the death penalty,’ says human rights activist and Viasna’s lawyer Valiantsin Stefanovich, commenting President Lukashenka’s recent statement in an interview with the La Stampa newspaper. Lukashenka said that the use of the death penalty is based on the results of the 1996 referendum and that, ‘under the Constitution, only another referendum can reverse its results.’ Read more…
Poet Andrei Khadanovich: ‘The death penalty has always been a means of restraint and intimidation’
Andrei Khadanovich, famous Belarusian poet, translator and head of the Belarusian PEN-Center, has joined the campaign for the abolition of the death penalty in Belarus. Read more…
Jean-Louis Laurens: ‘The abolition of the death penalty requires the political will of the country’s leaders’
‘Of course, the Special Guest status is very important, but its absence is not an obstacle to the cooperation between the Council of Europe and Belarus in various fields,’ said Jean-Louis Laurens, Council of Europe's Director General of Democracy and Political Affairs, during his visit to Minsk, six months after PACE named the abolition of or the declaration of a moratorium on the death penalty as the key condition for the restoration of the country’s Special Guest status in the Council of Europe. Read more…
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