Update 21.10.2009: UN COMMITTEE: DO NOT EXECUTE YUZEPCHUK!

The UN Human Rights Committee registered Vasily Yuzepchuk's case on 12 October, and called on the Belarusian government not to execute him until the Committee has considered his case. That day, the Supreme Court sent written notification to Vasily Yuzepchuk that it had rejected his appeal against his death sentence. Once he receives this notification, Vasily Yuzepchuk has 10 days to apply for clemency from President Alyaksandr Lukashenka. It is not known whether he has yet received the notification.

A Report by Nasha Viasna (www.spring96.org)

September closes the additional six-month test period that was given to the Belarusian authorities for starting democratic transformations in the country. Meanwhile, the authorities did not make any significant steps for the improvement of the situation of human rights in Belarus. The fundamental freedoms, such as the freedom of association, the freedom of expression and the freedom of consciousness remained restricted. On 24 September, during the briefing for representatives of international missions and journalists the Assembly of pro-Democratic NGOs voiced its preliminary evaluation of the activities of the Belarusian authorities on normalization of the situation of NGOs in the view of the end of another period of suspension of sanctions by the EU. Siarhei Matskevich, head of the Working group of the Assembly of NGOs, stated the absence of progress on the three points on which the European Union insisted: the abolishment of Article 193.1 of the Criminal Code, the abolishment of the death penalty, the solution of the problem of non-registration of civil organizations and introduction of reduced-price office rent tariff for them.