Brest dweller wins case against Belarus at UN

Activist Yury Bakur was arrested and brought to administrative responsibility as far back as 2007. Eight years after, United Nations Human Rights Committee found that the detention was unlawful.

Human rights activist Raman Kisliak, who represented the interests of Bakura in the Committee, recalls the 7-year-old events.

"Yury Bakur and other activists were detained during the presentation of the book by Pavel Sevyarynets  Letters from the Forest , which was held in an open meeting of the Belarusian Popular Front party in the city of Brest. People were detained and half of them were brought to administrative responsibility. "

Court of the Moscow District in Minsk found Bakura guilty of holding unauthorized activities and fined him three basic units (at the time 93 thousand).

In fact, the activist was held responsible for a party meeting in a room that was rented by the Brest branch of the Belarusian Popular Front party. However, the absurdity of the situation was not seen by either court which passed the decision or the subsequent courts that considered complaints if the activist.

Yury Bakur  turned to the United Nations Human Rights Committee in July 2008 after an unsuccessful appeal to the courts of Belarus. According to human rights activist Raman Kisliak, the complaint in the international court was registered in 2009.

"He complained about the violation of the right to liberty and security of person. He was detained for six and a half hours, and the detention was not officially registered. Also, in fact, it was an arbitrary detention and harassment with a view to obtaining information from him and other activists. The Committee recognized the violation of the right to peaceful assembly, freedom of information and the right to liberty and security of person. "

Among those detained and prosecuted in that case was also the Brest BPF activist Siarhei Lazenka. He also wrote a complaint to the Committee, which in October 2014 found a violation of his right to peaceful assembly and information.

Raman Kisliak said that the main function of the UN Committee on Human Rights in the examination of individual complaints is to indicate to the states the illegal practice of the law or its application, which violates an international treaty.

"First of all, it is a so-called "black mark". It shows for a fact that Belarus violated the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. And I hope that this case and other similar cases will lead to police officers and other public bodies give up on the arbitrary detention of people who gather indoors. "

Incidentally, the detention at the presentation of the book Letters from the Forest  at the time was one of the large-scale ones in Brest. At the police station were 28 people, 15 of whom had administrative reports filed against them. Not all of them were "lucky" to get a fine. Pavel and local activist Andrei Sharenda got several days of administrative arrest.

The antirecord lasted until the summer of 2011, when the so-called "silent rallies” were held.