In light of the execution in Belarus of Kiryl Kazachok, which took place in October 2017 but was brought to the public's attention only now, the European Union again reaffirms its strong opposition to capital punishment in all circumstances. 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 Kiryl Kazachok, which allegedly took place in October 2017. Read more…
Death convict Kiryl Kazachok has been executed by shooting, according to information received by Andrei Paluda, coordinator of the campaign “Human Rights Defenders against the Death Penalty in Belarus”. Read more…
The Delegation of the European Union to Belarus issues the following statement in agreement with the EU Heads of Mission in Belarus. Read more…
Two men were sentenced to death in Belarus on 20 January after their sentences of life imprisonment were quashed on appeal. They are the first two people to be sentenced to death in 2018, bringing the total number of people on death row in Belarus, according to the Belarusian authorities, to seven. Read more…
Another man was sentenced to death in the fall of 2017, in addition to the three persons earlier convicted during the year, Valery Kalinkovich, Deputy Chairman of the Supreme Court, said at a press conference in Minsk today. Read more…
The European Union has sharply criticized Belarus for sentencing two men to death, and repeated its call for President Alyaksandr Lukashenka's government to abolish capital punishment. Read more…
"Two new death verdicts handed on 20 January by the Minsk City Court are a very disturbing development. We reiterate our call on the Belarusian authorities to introduce a moratorium on capital punishment as the first step to its abolition," Spokesperson of the Council of Europe's Secretary General said today. Read more…
The Minsk City Court has sentenced two persons to death after a retrial on January 20. Viachaslau Sukharka and Aliaksandr Zhylnikau were found guilty of murdering three people in December 2015. One more defendant in the case, Alina Shulhanava, was sentenced to 12 years in prison. Read more…
The death sentences of Ihar Hershankou and Siamion Berazhnoy were upheld by the Supreme Court of Belarus on 20 December 2017. The two men were convicted and sentenced to death by the Mahiliou Regional Court, in eastern Belarus, on 21 July 2017. In the likely event that their appeal for clemency is rejected by the President, both men will be at risk of imminent execution. Read more…
Statement by the Spokesperson on two upheld death sentences in Belarus Read more…
The Criminal Division of the Supreme Court of Belarus has upheld the death sentences earlier handed down to Ihar Hershankou and Siamion Berazhnoi, two of the four people involved in the so-called ‘black realtors’ case’. Read more…
On 11 December 1977 Amnesty International and participants of the International Conference on the Abolition of the Death Penalty issued the Stockholm Declaration which called on all governments to bring about the immediate and total abolition of the death penalty. At the time, only 16 countries had abolished the death penalty. Forty years on, that figures stands at 105. To mark this anniversary, Amnesty International looks through this newsletter at trends in Europe and Central Asia and takes a closer look at the use of the death penalty in Belarus, the last executioner in the region. Read more…
On the European and World Day against the Death Penalty, the Council of Europe and the European Union reaffirm their strong and unequivocal opposition to capital punishment in all circumstances and for all cases. The death penalty is incompatible with human dignity. It constitutes inhuman and degrading treatment, does not have any proven deterrent effect and allows judicial errors to become irreversible and fatal. Read more…
Minsk-Paris, 6 October 2017. Ahead of the International Day against the Death Penalty on the 10th of October, our organisations recall that executions continue to take place in the middle of Europe. Detained in conditions amounting to torture, in constant psychological anguish caused by the uncertainty of the timing of their execution, prisoners in Belarus are being killed in secrecy. Read more…