While on death row, convicts face a number of violations of their rights. During their one monthly visit with a family member (a right accorded under Article 174 of the Criminal Law Enforcement Code), they are forbidden from referring to detention conditions. Read more…
His Eminence Metropolitan Pavel of Minsk and Zaslavl, the Patriarchal Exarch of All Belarus, has spoken in favor of introducing a moratorium on the death penalty in the country. Read more…
Joint Declaration by the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and the Secretary General of the Council of Europe on the European and World Day against the Death Penalty Read more…
From 5 to 10 October, the annual Week Against the Death Penalty will be held in Belarus. This year’s evets will focus on the conditions of detention on death row. Read more…
In Belarus, you cannot sentence a woman to death — this is the law. But it is women who suffer most from death sentences. Over the 27 years of Belarus’s independence, more than 400 men have been shot in Belarus. Behind each of them, there is the ruined life of at least one woman. We collected the stories of five of them. Read more…
Pope Francis has changed the teachings of the Catholic faith to officially oppose the death penalty in all circumstances, the Vatican has said. Read more…
Ihar Hershankou started his hunger strike on June 27 to protest violations of his right to correspondence, after all his complaints, including to the Prosecutor General, the Department of Corrections and Belarus’s envoy to the UN, as well as many letters to relatives, failed not reach their destinations. Read more…
Iranian citizen Mehrdad Jamshidian, who suffers from acute ill-health, was detained on 14 June in Belarus. He is at imminent risk of deportation to Iran, where he may be subjected to torture and the death penalty for ‘apostasy’ and murder accusations. Read more…
On July 13, the UN Human Rights Committee confirmed the registration of an individual communication submitted on behalf of Ihar Hershankou, who was sentenced to death by the Mahilioŭ Regional Court on July 21, 2017. Read more…
Ihar Hershankou, who was earlier sentenced to death, says he is beginning a hunger strike while on death row in Minsk’s detention center No. 1 to protest numerous violations of his right to correspondence, Viasna learned from the prisoner’s mother. Read more…
"This is a hugely significant and unprecedented decision for the only country in the region that has continued to execute people all these years." Read more…
Yves Cruchten (Luxembourg, SOC), General Rapporteur of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) on the abolition of the death penalty, and Andrea Rigoni (Italy, ALDE), former PACE rapporteur on the situation in Belarus, have strongly condemned the execution of Aliaksei Mikhalenia and Viktor Liotau, which reportedly took place in secret in mid-May. Read more…
Statement by the Spokesperson on the application of the death penalty in Belarus Read more…
The Supreme Court has upheld the death sentences earlier handed down to Aliaksandr Zhylnikau and Viachaslau Sukharko for the murder of three people. The judgment was pronounced after the court completed hearing Zhylnikau’s appeal, while Sukharko refused to challenge the verdict. Read more…
Spokesperson of the Secretary General: Statement by the Spokesperson on reported executions in Belarus Read more…