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Human rights situation in Belarus deteriorated in 2011, says Freedom House

The human rights situation in Belarus deteriorated in 2011, said Washington-based Freedom House in its Nations in Transit 2012 report released on June 6.

The suppression of Belarus’ political opposition after "a fraudulent presidential election" in December 2010 continued in 2011, as hundreds of participants and alleged instigators of the December 19 post-election protest were "harassed," detained, and sentenced, said the human rights watchdog in the latest edition of its annual analysis of democratic development in Central and Eastern Europe and Eurasia.

“In June and July, the regime responded with extreme force to a new series of demonstrations that adopted deliberately innocuous tactics like wordless clapping,” Freedom House said. “This second wave of repression, accompanied by the politically motivated arrest and sentencing of well-known human rights activist Ales Bialiatski [Ales Byalyatski], had driven Belarus’s remaining activists deep underground by year’s end.”

Freedom House rated Belarus as an authoritarian regime, saying that the country regressed last year on four out of seven indicators, including Civil Society, Judicial Framework and Independence, Corruption and Democracy Score.

The human rights situation is only worse in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, the group said. //BelaPAN