Open Letter to the UN Human Rights Committee

By Natalia Pinchuk (Ales Bialiatski's wife) and Antoine Bernard (CEO of FIDH)


Communication No. 2165/2012
Aliaksandr Bialiatski vs. Belarus


Submitted to the UN Human Rights Committee in accordance with the Optional Protocol to the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

Communication written by: N. Pinchuk, A. Bernard, on behalf of Aliaksandr Bialiatski

State: Republic of Belarus
Date: June 3, 2014


Re: Request to proceed to considering the merits of the case

Dear Members of the Committee,

Mr. Aliaksandr (Ales) Bialiatski, founder and President of the Belarusian Human Rights Center
Viasna and Vice-President of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), has been
detained continuously since the date of his arrest on August 4, 2011, serving his sentence in the
Bobruisk Detention Facility. The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, in its opinion published
on November 23, 2012, has deemed his detention to be arbitrary on the ground that he is detained for
the use of his fundamental rights under Article 20 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and
Article 22 of the ICCPR (A/HRC/WGAD/2012/39).

On 12 April 2012 we, Natalia Pinchuk (Ales Bialiatski's wife) and Antoine Bernard (Chief Executive
Officer of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH)), submitted to the UN Human Rights
Committee an individual submission on behalf of Aliaksandr Bialiatski in which we pointed violations
by the Republic of Belarus of Articles 9, 14 and 22 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political
rights (Communication No. 2165/2012).

The Permanent Mission of the Republic of Belarus, in a letter dated July 25, 2012 (Reference: 02-
14/864), indicated that in its opinion, the consideration of Communication No. 2165/2012 lacked legal
grounds both on admissibility and merits. In its view, the registration of the communication was done in
violation of Articles 1, 2 and 5.2(a) and (b) of the Optional Protocol to the ICCPR. Belarus clearly
indicated that it had discontinued proceedings regarding the communication and that it would
disassociate itself from the views that might be adopted on it by your Committee. !his way, the
State Party stated its intention not to communicate on this case further. Since July 2012, it indeed has
not followed up on this case. It did not reply to the Comments from the authors of the
communication on the objections from the Government of Belarus transmitted on October 22, 2012,
and filed no observations as to the communication (both on the admissibility and on the merits).

The Republic of Belarus has refused to cooperate with the Committee already for some years. Indeed,
the State Party declares that the legal grounds are non-existent for the consideration of individual
complaints from its citizens; it questions the legality of their filing with the Committee; and states that it
is not under an obligation to recognise the procedure of the Committee or its understanding of the


Optional Protocol. It also declared that any decision that might be adopted by the Committee will be
considered by it as non-valid. These positions are believed by the Committee to be in a violation of
Article 1 of the Optional Protocol to the ICCPR (cases Nos. 1226/2003, Korneenko v. Belarus;
1867/2009, 1936, 1975, 19771981 and 2010/2010, Levinov v. Belarus; 2120/2011, Kovaleva et al. v.
Belarus; and 1948/2010, Turchenyak v. Belarus).

We take note that your Committee sent requests to the State Party to receive observations, as well as
two reminders regarding observations on the merits of Communication No. 2165/2012, Bialiatksi vs.
Belarus. But in the light of the abovementioned position of the Republic of Belarus, there are
reasonable grounds to believe that no observations will ever be received from the State Party
concerning the Communication.

In a letter dated December 21, 2012 (Reference: G/SO 215/51 BLR (133)), Mr. Ibrahim Salama,
Director of the Human Rights Treaties Division, Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human
Rights, informed us that your Committee had decided, in accordance with rule 97, paragraph 3, of its
rules of procedure, to examine the admissibility of Communication No. 2165/2012 together with its
merits.

As detailed in our letter requesting a priority status for the communication and dated January 16, 2013,
Ales Bialiatski's situation at the detention facility has continuously deteriorated. As of May 2014, he had
been punished on clearly biased basis for minor violations of the regime as many as 12 times. These
measures resulted in such heavy and disproportional sanctions as prohibition of the food packages from
his family for a period up to eight months and of personal meetings with his wife for a period up to two
years. He works several shifts six days a week in the sewing department of the Bobruisk Detention
Facility. This has had an adverse impact on his health. (See the Annex below.)

One unique aspect of his treatment is that the prison administration prohibits other prisoners from
communicating with him. These inmates have been informed that if they do communicate with Ales
Bialiatski, disciplinary action will be taken against them.

Ales Bialiatski needs international protection. The consideration by the Committes of his case will
confront the State Party with legal argumentation, based on the international obligations by
which it is bound, which is necessary to further work towards his release and the re-consideration
of the verdict in his case by the domestic judicial system. His case may also represent an
important precedent, as it is clearly correlated with a permanent and general pressure on other
human rights defenders in the country. We therefore respectfully request that you proceed as a
matter of critical and urgent priority to considering the merits of the communication in the
absence of the State Party's observations.

Please rest assured, dear Committee members, of our highest consideration.

Natalia Pinchuk
Antoine Bernard
Minsk-Paris







Annex

Ales Bialiatski: 1000 Days in Prison
Radio Racyja. 30 April 2014
Ales Bialiatski, head of the Human Rights Center Viasna and vice president of FIDH, has spent
1000 days behind bars.
His wife, Natalya Pinchuk, mentioned it in an interview she gave to Gennady Barbarych, a
correspondent for Radio Racyja. This is quite a sad day. We also tried to guess how many days
hes been alive overall. It worked out to 18,800 days. So out of these 18,000 days, he has spent 1,000
days living under difficult conditions in prison.
- RR: Is there any news from Ales? What is his emotional and physical state?
-Natalya Pinchuk: As far as any news from Ales himself is concerned, it can be quite hard to receive any
specific information. He usually says that everything is fine. But this worries me greatly, because I
understand that he doesnt want to talk about it or upset me with the details of his life and health. And
his health is really what worries me most, because the conditions there are very tough. He also works
six days a week. I only receive information about his health from indirect sources. I know that right now
he is in the hospital. He was admitted there because of poisoning. I was able to learn from documents I
managed to obtain previously from the colony that he also has problems with his blood pressure, which
he never used to have. This is clearly an illness he came down with during his time in prison. It was the
same with Mikola Statkevichhe also never had problems with blood pressure before, but this year the
media reported that he was in quite a serious situation because of his blood pressure. Naturally this is a
cause for concern for me and the relatives of other political prisoners. We wonder what the state of
their health is now and what it will be when they are released.
- RR: I see you have a carton of cigarettes in your closet. Is that for Ales?
- Natalya Pinchuk: As far as packages are concerned, he received the last one right after New Years.
According to the rules and regulations, he can receive another one in four months. So Im preparing
another one, but theres never any certainty that I will be able to deliver the package, because measures
have been taken many times against Ales to limit his ability to receive packages from the outside.
Ales Bialiatski is serving a sentence in penal colony No. 2 in Bobruisk under a court verdict. On 24
November 2011, he was sentenced to four years and six months in prison for concealing income in an
especially large amount.

Original version in Belarussian:
http://www.racyja.com/index.php?id=104&zoom=23991#.U4opLS997QP