Belarus: Human rights defenders held in pretrial detention amnesty.org.uk - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from amnesty.org.uk Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
âItâs a total purge of civil society,â said Marina Vorobei, the founder of Freeunion.online, an online platform for public unions and initiatives that helps with self-organisation and provides tools for secure networking and remote work. âNGOs have always been under pressure in Belarus ⦠but these raids, this wave of arrests and seizures have never been seen by the non-profit sector.â
On Thursday Lukashenko vowed that the raids on NGOs would continue, calling them âbandits and foreign agentsâ. âA mopping-up operation is going on,â Lukashenko said. âDo you think itâs easy? There are thousands of our people working for them, and their brains are distorted and brainwashed with foreign money.â
On 14 July, Belarus law enforcement officers broke into and searched the offices of at least a dozen major Belarusian civil society and human rights organizations and opposition groups, as well the homes of civil society leaders. The list of those targeted included the human rights group Vyasna, Belarusian Association of Journalists, Belarusian Helsinki Committee, the human rights group Human Constanta, the independent academic research centre BEROC, the human rights group Gender Perspectives, World Union of Belarusians Batskaushchyna, Belarusian People’s Front opposition party, “For Freedom” pro-democracy movement and Imena publishing house. At least 12 people were arrested on 14 July. Some were released over the following days but Vyasna chairman Ales Bialiatski, Vyasna vice chairman Valyantsyn Stefanovich, and the organization’s lawyer Uladzimir Labkovich and his wife Nina Labkovich, were transferred to a pretrial detention centre on 17 July.
Belarus: New wave of searches and arrests of human rights… omct.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from omct.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.