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PACE resolution will only impede declaration of moratorium on death penalty in Belarus, lawmaker says

The recent resolution of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly that provides for suspending high-level contact with Belarus will only impede the declaration of a moratorium on the death penalty in Belarus, Ihar Karpenka, deputy chairperson of the House of Representatives’ international affairs committee, said during a meeting in Minsk on May 13 with a visiting delegation of the French city of Feurs led by Jean-Claude Frecon, a member of the Senate of France.

The Belarusian parliament thoroughly studies PACE resolutions, which are often critical regarding the state of democracy and human rights in Belarus, Mr. Karpenka said, as quoted by BelaPAN.

The Belarusian parliament deplores attempts to link the restoration of special guest status for it in PACE to the abolition of the death penalty, he stressed.

“We are not schoolchildren for PACE to shake its finger at us for doing something wrong,” Mr. Karpenka said. “We’ve set up a working group that is studying the possibility of declaring a moratorium on the death penalty. I believe the PACE resolution only causes damage to this matter. We have certain self-respect as citizens and humans, which doesn’t allow us to tolerate dictation from the outside.”

Mr. Karpenka pointed out that Belarus would make a decision on a moratorium on the death penalty irrespective of PACE resolutions and on the basis of national interests.

The PACE resolution, adopted on April 29, provided for suspending PACE’s activities involving high-level contact with the Belarusian parliament and/or the governmental authorities, having noted a “lack of progress” towards Council of Europe standards and a “lack of political will” on the part of the authorities to adhere to the values of the Council of Europe.

Sixty-seven members of the 318-member Assembly voted on the resolution, with 58 of them voting in favor of it and six voting against it, with three abstentions.

In the resolution, the Assembly condemned the executions of Andrey Zhuk and Vasil Yuzepchuk, “which were carried out, in March 2010, in conditions of total secrecy and at a time when the United Nations Human Rights Committee had requested a stay in the executions pending its examination of their cases.”