HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH

PRESS RELEASE

Minsk, February 24, 1998

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in New York: Rachel Denber at 1-212-216 1226

in Moscow: Aleksandr Petrov at 7-095-265 4448

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Belarus: Show-trial sentences teenagers

A Minsk court today sentenced two teenagers: sixteen-year-old Vadim Labkovich and nineteen-year-old Alexei Shidlovsky to a one-and-a-half year of suspended prison term and a one-and-a-half year of unsuspended prison term in a strict regime colony respectively for writing political graffiti and replacing a state flag. Human Rights Watch, the US-based organization, today condemned the proceedings as a show trial and a mockery of justice. During the four-day court hearing, Labkovich and Shidlovsky, who had already spent nearly six months in pre-trial detention, sat in an iron cage surrounded by eight armed police men with an attack dog with dozens of riot police throughout the court building.

Human Rights Watch monitors were present at the trial as the state prosecutor accused the teenagers of hooliganism with "especial insolence and extreme cynicism" and demanded two years of imprisonment in a strict-regime labor camp for Shidlovsky and a two year suspended sentence for Labkovich. On the first day of proceedings, as if addressing a violent recidivist representing a grave threat to society, presiding judge Lavrov stated to Shidlovsky, "Thank God that you have been behind bars since August."

Shidlovsky and Labkovich are members of the Malady Front, the youth wing of the Belarusian People's Front, the country's most visible opposition party. Police arrested the youths on August

25 and 27, 1997, respectively.

In the early hours of August 3, a small group of young people in the provincial town of Stolptsy wrote opposition and anti-presidential graffiti of varying degrees of profanity on the walls of the town's government buildings and on monuments to Lenin and Dzerzhinsky - the founder of the predecessor to the KGB; Shidlovsky and Labkovich were members of this group. Some of the youths also took down the official state flag, resurrected in 1995 from the Soviet era, from the town government building, and replaced it with the banned white-red-white flag of "independent" Belarus, now associated with the opposition. Waving the white and red flag at a demonstration is now an offense, punishable by a fine or administrative detention.

"This trial is an absurd parody of criminal justice and a grotesque show-trial aimed at intimidating young people from expressing their opposition to the current regime in Belarus," declared Holly Cartner, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch's Europe and Central Asia Division. "In most states with even the trappings of rule of law, the alleged offenses, which were committed by teenagers - first-time offenders - would warrant, at most, a warning or a fine," continued Ms Cartner.

In this clearly political case, the Belarusian government not only deprived a schoolboy and a college student, whose guilt had yet to be proven, of their liberty for six months but in so doing, exposed the pair to severely overcrowded, unsanitary, abusive and at times violent conditions in various detention facilities outside Minsk. The government also tasked the Committee on State Security (KGB) to investigate the case.

After nearly six months of criminal investigation, the state managed to produce just three witnesses, of whom only one claimed to have seen Shidlovsky writing on the wall of a library building. The remaining evidence was based solely on the two teenagers' partial confessions.

Since coming to power in July, 1994, President Lukashenka has undone nearly all the positive changes in the area of human rights and freedoms and democratization that characterized the perestroika and post-Soviet periods. "Belarus exhibits an increasing and eerie resemblance to the worst aspects of the Soviet Union, with all the hallmarks of Soviet-style repression," commented Ms. Cartner. "This trial is one of the more perverse manifestations of this tendency."

In addition to repressive campaigns against the independent media, non-governmental organizations, opposition politicians and parties, the government is increasingly targeting young people associated with the opposition. Several politically active students, including Shidlovksy, have been expelled from university ostensibly for non-attendance or failing exams, but more likely for their political activity. Over the last year, government harassment has forced several members of the Malady Front to seek asylum abroad. Credible reports indicate that high-school teachers have dissuaded pupils from participating in demonstrations and opposition activities. During the trial of Labkovich and Shidlovsky, the prosecutor and judge repeatedly drew negative inferences from the expression of anti-presidential sentiment and membership of the Malady Front. Furthermore, on February 23, police detained three teenage members of the Malady Front and a trial observer for the Belarusian Helsinki Committee, who had been denied

entry into the hearing, for holding an "unsanctioned demonstration" outside the court building, and kept them for several hours at a police station. Earlier, Yury Moroz, who on the first day of the trial brought a placard demanding freedom for Shidlovsky and Labkovich, was sentenced to fifteen-days of administrative detention.

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The staff of Human Rights Watch includes Kenneth Roth, executive director; Susan Osnos, associate director; Michele Alexander, development director; Cynthia Brown, program director; Barbara Guglielmo, finance and administration director; Patrick Minges, publications director; Jeri Laber, special advisor; Lotte Leicht, Brussels office director; Susan Osnos, communications director; Jemera Rone, counsel; Wilder Tayler, general counsel; and Joanna Weschler, United Nations representative. Robert L. Bernstein is the chair of the board and Adrian W. DeWind is vice chair.

Its Europe and Central Asia division was established in 1978 to monitor and promote domestic and international compliance with the human rights provisions of the 1975 Helsinki Accords. It is affiliated with the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights, which is based in Vienna, Austria. Holly Cartner is the executive director; Rachel Denber is the deputy director; Erika Dailey, Andreas Lommen, Maxine Marcus, Christopher Panico, and Diane Paul are research associates; Diederik Lohman is the Moscow office director, Alexander Petrov is the Assistant Moscow office director; John MacLeod is the Toshkent office director; Marie Struthers is the Dushanbe office director; and Liudmila Belova, Malcolm Hawkes, Emily Shaw, and Juliet Wilson are associates. Jonathan Fanton is the chair of the advisory committee and Peter Osnos and Alice Henkin are co-vice chairs.

Web Site Address: http://www.hrw.org

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Diederik Lohman, Director

Alexander Petrov, Deputy Director

Moscow Office

Europe and Central Asia Division

Human Rights Watch

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