Belarus: HRC "Viasna" office unlawfully raided, dozens arrested
| Publisher | International Federation for Human Rights |
| Publication Date | 25 March 2017 |
| Cite as | International Federation for Human Rights, Belarus: HRC "Viasna" office unlawfully raided, dozens arrested, 25 March 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58db62be4.html [accessed 7 June 2023] |
| Disclaimer | This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. |
At least 57 persons involved in the monitoring of ongoing peaceful protests, including foreign nationals from France, Germany, Ukraine and Russia, were arrested today at the office of Human Rights Centre "Viasna" in Minsk. The arrest took place ahead of peaceful protests to be held on March 25, 2017. Arrests of protesters, journalists and monitors are reportedly on-going.
On March 25, 2017, at 1pm, masked and armed members of the special police unit stormed into the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Viasna" office, forced those present in the office to lay to the floor and subsequently took them in a bus to the Pervomaiskii police station in Minsk. Those detained included several members of HRC "Viasna", Ms. Raisa Mikhailovskaya, Head of Belarusian Documentation Centre, Mr. Aleh Hulak, Chairman of the Belarusian Helsinki Committee, Ms. Maria Chichtchenkova, Front Line Defenders Coordinator, and Ms. Evgenia Andreiuk, Co-coordinator for the NGO Crimea-SOS. The group was participating in a meeting to coordinate protest monitoring.
They were all released without charge a few hours later. The special police unit did not have a warrant to raid the office. No material or equipment was seized.
At least one person was taken to the hospital.
FIDH member organisation in Belarus HRC "Viasna" is a major source of independent information on the human rights situation in Belarus, in particular the recent crackdown of peaceful protests against Presidential Decree No. 3 that imposes a tax on the unemployed.
The massive crackdown, unseen since 2010 when the EU and the US imposed sanctions on Belarus for massively infringing human rights, proves the absence of any change in the nature of this repressive regime.
