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Home / Agenda
The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention Visited Minsk
The UN Commission on Human Rights
established the Working Group in 1991 to investigate allegations of arbitrary
deprivation of liberty. The Group is composed of five independent experts
appointed according to criteria governing equitable geographical distribution.
Group's mandate was extended in 1997 to cover the issue of administrative
custody of asylum–seekers and immigrants. During the visit the Working Group
held private interviews with more than two hundred detainees at Minsk Pre–trial
Detention Centre no. 1, at the Correctional Colony no.1, at the Temporary
Detention and Distribution Center and at the State —
Clinical Mental Hospital; in Lida Special Reception Centre; in Grodno
Investigation Pre–trial Detention Centre; to the Peskavsty (Grodno Region) Free
Settlement; in Gomel's Investigation Pre–trial Detention
Center as well as in the Women's Correction Colony no.4; in Mozyr's Men's
Correctional Colony no. 15/20 as well as in the City Police Station; in Vitebsk
Investigation Pre–trial Detention Center no. 2 as well as in the Educational
Colony for minor offenders no.3.
The Working Group also held
meetings with the Minister for Foreign Affairs, the Minister for Internal
Affairs and with officials of both Ministries and of the Ministry of Justice;
with the Chairman of the Committee on Legislation, Judicial and Legal Issues of
the House of Representatives of the National Assembly; with the Chairmen of both
the Supreme Court and of the Military Court; with the Deputy Prosecutor General;
members of State Security Committee (KGB); the Chairperson of the National Bar
Association; with authorities of the State Police; the penitentiary
administration; Border Guards, and with judges, prosecutors, lawyers and
officers working at the national, regional and district levels. It also held
meetings with several nongovernmental organizations, relatives of persons in
detention, former detainees and individual persons. A report on the visit
will be published as part of the Working Group's report to the sixty–first
session of the UN Commission on Human Rights which will be held in March–April
2005 in Geneva. The Working Group presented its initial impressions and some
issues of concern during the final press conference, which took place at the UN
Office in Belarus in the last day of the visit.
The Working Group expressed its
gratitude for the cooperation of the Government and the official authorities met
during this visit. Apart from the inmates and detention facilities under the
control of the State Security Committee (KGB), the Group was able to visit all
the other detention centers and facilities that it required. In all the
facilities visited, the Working Group has been able to meet and interview with
whoever it wanted, pre–trial detainees, convicted persons serving their
sentence, women, minors, even persons in discipline quarters. The Group noted
that the authorities have made efforts to improve the judicial system and legal
framework inherited from Soviet Union times. The Working Group was made aware
that Presidential amnesty decrees have been adopted to reduce the overcrowding
in detention facilities and that other measures have been taken to improve the
conditions of detention and alternative penalties to deprivation of liberty and
security measures have been adopted and are being implemented. The Group
welcomed these measures considering the overcrowding observed in some pre–trial
detention centers (SIZO).
With regard to the situation of
asylum and refugee seekers, the Working Group notes that the legal framework is
in conformity with international law. The Group has visited the Migrant
Residence Center in Vitebsk and has noticed that asylum seekers can stay in or
leave freely the compound and are provided with temporary accommodation. At the
same time the Working Group has noticed with concern that during the whole
period of pre–trial detention, persons deprived of their liberty are under the
total control of the investigators and of the prosecutors, who are mandated to
establish charges against them. The decision to maintain a person in detention
or to extend the period of his detention is taken not by a judge but by the
Prosecutor, acting on proposal of the investigator. The Group also noticed that
the advocate does not benefit automatically from the right to examine the
investigation file, to be present during the gathering of evidence or to look at
all elements of proof against his client until the investigator concludes his
investigation and transmits the case to the Court. This imbalance between the
two opposing parties is not in conformity with international standards, which
require that the whole investigation be conducted in a contradictory manner. The
Working Group stressed that pre–trial detention is, under international
standards, a security measure to which must be relied only in exceptional
circumstances to guarantee the administration of justice and to ensure the
presence of the accused at trial. The Group noticed that this measure is heavily
relied upon, even for juveniles. The Group noticed that the conditions of
pre–trial detention are much worse than the ones for convicted persons. The
Working Group gathered information that suggest that from the beginning of the
process of arrest and detention, the detainees are often put under strong
psychological pressure to incriminate themselves in the crime they are accused
of. The Group was informed by many detainees that investigators and even
advocates assigned by the state to defend them, often try to convince them that
the best chance to get out of the pre–trail detention regime is to confess. The
Group stressed that such alleged practice is contrary to the principle of
international law under which no one is forced to testify against
himself.
The Working Group has received a lot of information concerning cases in
which persons exercising their rights to assembly, demonstration, freedom of
expression, opinion, or disseminating information, in a peaceful manner, rights
and freedom protected under international instruments of human rights to which
Belarus is a party, were arrested and detained for short periods or even
convicted to several years of deprivation of liberty. The Group has also
received allegations that the Code of Administrative Offenses is used to detain
persons who exercise peacefully these rights and is concerned that this
procedure is being used to reprimand peaceful demonstrators or political
opponents.
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