Recent developments in Belarus show lack of progress towards Council of Europe standards:
- two prisoners were executed in March, in conditions of total secrecy and while their cases were being examined by the UN Human Rights Committee;
- members of the Polish minority continue to suffer harassment and infringements of their rights;
- the April 2010 local elections took place in the complete absence of any international observers.
In the light of these developments, the Political Affairs Committee, therefore, proposes that the Assembly put on hold its activities involving high-level contacts between the Assembly and the Belarusian authorities.
Death penalty abolition is the main but not the sole condition to restore special guest status for Belarus in PACE. There will be also taken into account the issues related to media freedom, human rights and democracy. It was stated by Rapporteur on Belarus in PACE, Sinikka Hurskainen.
Sinikka Hurskainen, rapporteur on Belarus in the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) and chairperson of the PACE Sub-Committee on Belarus, arrived in Minsk. Ms. Hurskainen plans to hold meetings with a large number of Belarusian officials. She said that three issues – human rights, democracy and the rule of law – were of interest to her.
The Belarusian parliament will continue its dialogue with the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) about the possibility of restoring its Special Guest status in the Assembly, said Ms. Mazay, chairperson of the International Affairs Committee in the Council of the Republic.
Resolution of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe to suspend contacts with Belarus harms the issue of a moratorium on the death penalty in the country. It was reported by deputy chairman of the Commission on International Affairs and Ties with CIS of the House of Representatives, Ihar Karpenka, at a meeting on May 13 with a delegation of La Fere French town, headed by a member of the Senate, Jean-Claude Frecon.
