Concerns in Europe: January - June 2001
13
Amnesty International September 2001
AI Index: EUR 01/003/2001
deals, was in fact motivated by her husband’s political
activity collecting the signatures.
B E L A R U S
Possible “Disappearances”
- Dmitry Zavadsky
AI learned in May that several past and present
members of the elite Almaz police unit were being
held in custody, charged in connection with the
kidnapping and possible murder of Russian Public
Television (ORT) cameraman Dmitry Zavadsky.
Valery Ignatovich, Maksim Malik, Aleksey Guz and
Sergei Savushkin were expected to come to trial at
Minsk Regional Court in July. In contravention of
various international human rights standards the trial
was reportedly going to be held behind closed doors.
Dmitry Zavadsky went missing on the morning of
7 July 2000, after he drove to a Minsk airport to meet
a journalist colleague, Pavel Sheremet, who was
arriving on an aeroplane from Moscow (see AI Index:
EUR 01/001/2001). Even though Dmitry Zavadsky’s
car was found parked at the airport no trace has ever
been found of the 27-year-old cameraman. Dmitry
Zavadsky’s wife, Svetlana, informed an AI delegation
in March that she and their young son have received
no word from him since his whereabouts became
unknown.
The
investigations
into
the
apparent
“disappearance” of Dmitry Zavadsky as well as the
other missing opposition leaders Yury Zakharenko,
Viktor Gonchar and his companion Anatoly
Krasovsky have been cloaked in controversy, eliciting
domestic and international criticism relating to their
perceived transparency and impartiality (see AI Index:
49/002/2001). In March, the Parliamentary Troika,
composed of members of the European Parliament
and the Parliamentary Assemblies of the Council of
Europe and the Organization for Security and Co-
operation (OSCE) in Europe, which had visited
Belarus from 5 to 7 March, also expressed “... its
continuing concern about the human rights situation”
and particularly “... at the lack of progress in
investigating
the
disappearances
of
political
opponents, Mr Zakharenko, Mr Gonchar, Mr
Krasovsky as well as the journalist Mr Zavadsky”.
11
Toward the end of the period under review there
were reports that two officials of the Prosecutor
General’s Office, Dmitry Petrushkevich and Oleg
Sluchek, assigned to investigate the possible
"disappearances", fled to the USA in June, where they
obtained asylum. They alleged that officials in
President Lukashenka’s immediate circle of
appointees had employed the elite Almaz police group
to eliminate a number of Belarus' opposition. The
missing men are reportedly buried in a graveyard to
the north of the capital, Minsk.
Prisoner of conscience -
Professor Yury Bandazhevsky
On
18
June
43-year-old
Professor
Yury
Bandazhevsky was sentenced by the Military
Collegium of the Belarusian Supreme Court in Gomel
to eight years’ imprisonment in a strict penal colony
with confiscation of property for allegedly taking
bribes from students seeking admission to the Gomel
Medical Institute, of which he is the former rector (see
AI Index: EUR 49/008/2001). AI believes that his
conviction is related to his outspoken criticism of the
Belarusian authorities’ reaction to the Chernobyl
nuclear reactor catastrophe of 1986, and considers him
to be a prisoner of conscience.
International and domestic trial observers
considered not only that the basis of Yury
Bandazhevsky’s conviction appeared extremely
weak, but also that his right to a fair trial had been
repeatedly violated. The Advisory and Monitoring
Group of the OSCE in Belarus, which had observed
the entire duration of the trial, noted eight different
infringements of the Belarusian Criminal Code during
the pre-trial investigation and trial. These included the
violation of Yury Bandazhevsky’s right to defence, as
he was denied access to counsel during the entirety of
his six months in pre-trial detention. At the time of
writing Yury Bandazhevsky was imprisoned at the UZ
15/1 prison in Minsk, where he was being held in a
dormitory-type prison cell with around 150 other
prisoners, sleeping in three-tiered bunk beds.
The release of prisoner of conscience
Vladimir Koudinov
On 5 February prisoner of conscience Vladimir
Koudinov was released in an amnesty after serving
four years’ in prison. He was originally sentenced to
seven years’ imprisonment in August 1997 on the
charge of allegedly bribing a police officer (see AI
Index: EUR 49/14/00). As a deputy of the dissolved
Belarusian parliament, the 13
th
Supreme Soviet,
Vladimir Koudinov had taken an active role in
attempting
to
impeach
President
Alyaksandr
Lukashenka for dissolving parliament in November
1996. AI believed that he - like other deputies of the
13
th
Supreme Soviet - had been imprisoned for his
opposition activities. In early March he informed an
11
Parliamentary Troika visit to Belarus - Final statement, 7
AI delegation visiting Minsk about the egregious
conditions of his detention and how he felt that he had
been adversely treated by the prison authorities on
account of his political status.
Human rights defenders
For 12 days at the end of February and the beginning
of March an AI delegation visited the Belarusian cities
of Brest, Gomel, Minsk, Mogilov and Vitebsk,
conducting interviews with a range of human rights
defenders. The report of the visit, In the Spotlight of
the State: Human Rights Defenders in Belarus (AI
March 2001