Two years ago, on August 4, 2011, Ales Bialiatski, head of the Human Rights Center “Viasna,” was arrested. On November 24 of the same year he was sentenced to a 4.5-year prison term on tax evasion charges. For the second year in a row, on an anniversary of Bialiatski’s arrest, Ukrainian public activists are taking a number of actions of solidarity with Belarusian civil society.
Last Sunday visitors to Mariinsky Park in Kyiv were surprised to see some photos that convincingly demonstrated the way official Minsk observes human rights. They could also stop before a bench that simulated the “teddy bear attack” and hear Free University lectures. This was A Space of Free Belarus – the unifying name of the events organized by Ukrainian civic activists from the Civil Freedoms Center, Amnesty International in Ukraine, the international documentary film festival Docudays UA, the Republic Institute, the Foundation of Regional Initiatives, and the Congress of Ethnic Communities.
As a matter of fact, there were only a few dozen Belarusians among the participants. On the whole, not more than 30 people, including the organizers themselves, visited the events at a time. But the daytime interactive program was largely aimed at chance passers-by to help them know more about the human rights and freedoms situation in the neighboring country. Incidentally, Belarus remains Europe’s only country, where the European Convention on Human Rights is not applicable and death is the extreme penalty. But, while the flash-mob with a caged “Lukashenko” seemed to attract public attention, visitors were reluctant to affix their signatures to petitions in support of civil society in Belarus and in protest against secrecy that shrouds capital punishment.
“It is difficult to collect signatures because very few people respond positively to the request to sign a petition. We offered two petitions, and it became clear in the first hour that we would be unable to gather signatures for two petitions at the same time. So we will begin with the petition in support of civil society in Belarus,” says Viktoria ARKHYPENKO from Amnesty International in Ukraine. “The usual reaction to the request to affix a signature is: ‘Did you live there? You first live there and only then begin to criticize.’ As for capital punishment, it turns out that many Ukrainians support it.”
According to Arkhypenko, Amnesty International activists are trying to persuade Belarus to repeal Article 175 of the Criminal Code, which bans handing over the body of an executed person to his or her relatives and even informing them of the place of burial. “We are asking to repeal this article, which would be as a small step towards abolition of capital punishment. For a mother may have been writing to prison for six months, while her son was executed six months ago,” the girl says. By 5 p.m., Amnesty International in Ukraine had managed to gather a little more than 150 signatures.
On the whole, in spite of a historic, linguistic, and cultural proximity, Belarus rarely comes into the field of vision of an average Ukrainian, still more rarely is it regarded as partner state. But a lot of people believe that, thanks to Alexander Lukashenko, Belarusians live quite comfortably. Far from everybody is prepared to defend such “ephemeral” things as human rights even in their own country.
High on the agenda of A Space of Free Belarus was the show of Viacheslav Rakitsky’s film Enough! Long Live Freedom! on the events in Minsk in December 2010, when people took to the streets after the presidential elections in a peaceful protest. This film was first shown in Ukraine at a Docudays UA festival.
The film show was attended by Tatiana Grabovska, an immediate participant in those events. The girl was an election observer and took part in a rally. She ended up in a police van together with the others. As a result, she was sentenced to a 10-day term. In Tatiana’s words, the trial resembled the Soviet-era summary justice: you come into a small room, where the judge reads out the sentence – 10 days of arrest or 15 if you do not agree. When Tatiana was released from jail, she was expelled from the university even though she had an overachiever before this. Now the girl studies in Poland. She came to Ukraine to visit one more Belarusian, Marina Shalovska, who also studies in Poland but her mother lives in Ukraine. The girls also told us that they try to support their Belarusian fellow students and organize various events in Gdansk and Krakow. Yet Tatiana added at the end of her speech that she doubts that Belarusians are capable of organizing a revolution on their own.
Some debaters claimed that the situation in Belarus depends on the one in Ukraine. According to Oleksandr Solontai, practical politics program manager at the Institute of Political Education, poverty of the Ukrainian population, racket, and oligarchy in our country are an argument for the president of Belarus to scare his voters and entrepreneurs with the “consequences of democracy.” On the other hand, Solontai says, the neighboring country has no viable opposition which could take people to the streets or has a program of actions during the protests and after their successful completion.
It would be wrong to expect one country to throw a lifeline to the other. Still, the Ukrainians ought to study more minutely the situation inside Belarusian society. For the space of free Ukraine and the space of free Belarus are interdependent to a large degree.
TO THE POINT
As the text was going to press, the Belarusian service of Radio Liberty reported that two more human rights activists from the Viasna Human Rights Center – Tatsiana Reviaka and Uladzimir Labkovich – had been apprehended in Minsk. They were arrested on August 5 at 12:20. Fifteen minutes later Labkovich told Radio Liberty that he was in custody at Minsk’s Radiansky District Police Station, following which the communication broke off. The human rights activists were handing out leaflets with a picture of Ales Bialiatski near the central department store.
