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No human rights or pro-democracy NGOs registered in Belarus last year, rights activist says

Not a single human rights or pro-democracy non-governmental organization was registered in Belarus in 2011, Volha Smalyanka, director of the Center for Legal Transformation, told reporters in Minsk on Monday, BelaPAN said.

“As for data about the registration of not-for-profit organizations last year, the Ministry of Justice has not yet released such data,” Ms. Smalyanka said. “As for data about the liquidation of such organization, such information is not published in Belarus at all. We made our analysis on the basis of the state register of legal entities and sole entrepreneurs and established that as many as 112 non-governmental organizations were registered in 2011. What is interesting in this matter? The point is that when the justice ministry accounts to some international institutions, it constantly says that the number of NGOs is increasing, which it says is evidence of the development of civil society in Belarus. When we looked at the organizations registered last year, we found that out of the 112 organizations, 61 of them, that is, more than half, were sports-related ones. There are also many dog breeding and felinological associations in our country. But no human rights organizations or organizations aiming at democratic change in the country were registered in 2011. On the contrary, the only human rights organization that applied for registration last year, the Alternatyva Plyus Human Rights Center, which advances the rights of sexual minorities, was denied it.”