During the weekend representatives of the Ukrainian opposition held a political forum in the centre of Kyiv. The attending parties discussed the final draft of a resolution representing the united opposition before the upcoming Parliamentary elections. The participants condemned repressions and the deteriorating democracy in Ukraine. The meeting also criticized the situation for human rights in Ukraine, the government’s economic policies, especially those that have led to soaring taxes and an unfavourable pension reforms. (more…)
Oleg Buklemishev.
Vladimir Putin has for a third time taken office as Russian president. Though, he is coming back to a country in a very different mood, says Oleg Buklemishev, Economist and Advisor to opposition leader Mikhail Kasyanov. “The scene of the inauguration car passing through an empty city is quite symbolic”. Buklemishev is convinced that the authorities’ violence towards mostly peaceful protesters shows that “intolerance towards dissent will only increase during new Putin term. Instead of bridging the national divide he has clearly chosen to polarize society even more”. Her believes that even the “weakest” of Medvedev’s “political reform” can be revoked in this environment (more…)
Copyright Ilya Yashin (Solidarnost)
Today Vladimir Putin will for a third time take office as Russian president. At the same time he is facing protests against his command over political affairs in Russia.
“Police on Sunday used batons and charging tactics to break up an anti-Putin rally in the centre of Moscow which had been sanctioned by the authorities but had descended into chaos,” reported British The Telegraph. The opposition leader Boris Nemtsov on his home page nemtsov.ru wrote that “according to the Interior Ministry in Moscow 436 people were arrested”, though the opposition claims that the list is much longer: about 650 detainees. Three key leaders of the protest movement were arrested: anti-corruption campaigner and blogger Alexei Navalny, liberal politician Boris Nemtsov and left-wing leader Sergei Udaltsov. Nemtsov was released after being sentenced to pay a fine. The other two opposition leaders are still imprisoned. (more…)
The Croatian President Ivo Josipovic last week joined European leaders who will not attend a Yalta summit in mid-May. The Croatian president’s office said that one of the reasons for the decision is suspected human rights violations in Ukraine. The news comes after a foreign ministry spokesman in Ukraine said on April 30, that the presidents of Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Italy and Slovenia has informed Kiev that they will not attend the Yalta meeting of Central and Eastern European leaders on May 11-12.
The boycott of the Yalta meeting reflects mounting concern over the hunger striking opposition leader and the treatment of her in jail. Yulia Tymoshenko was sentenced last fall to seven years imprisonment for abusing power while she was in office. She has denied the allegations. (more…)
The Front for Change Party, the Batkivschyna all-Ukrainian Union (prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko’s party) and another four parties today announced their unification for participation in the elections to the Parliament on October 28, 2012, reported the Kyiv Post.
“We have united in order to win the parliamentary elections in Ukraine, [and] to restore democracy and justice in Ukraine,” First Deputy Chairman of the Batkivschyna All-Ukrainian Union Oleksandr Turchynov said, reading out the declaration of unity at a press conference on Monday, Apr. 23. (more…)
During the weekend, two leading Belarusian oppositional activists were released from prison. Both had been detained and sentenced to prison in according with the “mass riots” criminal case after the presidential elections on December 19, 2010. (more…)
Russia will not allow Belarusian oppositional politicians, journalists, aso, to enter the country. Up until this time the Belarus opposition - individuals who are banned from leaving Belarus – have been able to use Russia as transit hub to travel abroad. (more…)
Arseniy Yatsenyuk
April 3, the Jarl Hjalmarson Foundation hosted a breakfast seminar with the Ukrainian party leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk, former minister for foreign affairs and speaker. Yatsenyuk is a key figure in the attempts to unite the democrat opposition in Ukraine prior to the next parliamentary elections in October this year.
Reports of the developments in Ukraine confirm that the democracy is suffering under President Viktor Yanukovych. What does this mean to this year’s parliamentary elections and how does the democrat opposition work? Those are some of the questions that Arseniy Yatsenyuk answered during the seminar. (more…)
Today the Council of the Europian Union introduced new restrictions again the Belarusian regime.
The Europian Union has decided to add 29 companies and 12 individuals to some 230 Belarusians already blacklisted in response to repression of the political opposition by President Aliaksandr Lukashenka’s regime. (more…)
Yesterday, on Sunday of March 4, 2012, Vladimir Putin, currently Russia’s prime-minister, declared his victory in the Russian presidential elections; the victory that was overshadowed by widespread reports of vote-rigging, ballot fraud and other violations during the electoral process across the country. The Central Election Commission announced that with around 25 % of the ballots counted preliminary results indicated that Vladimir Putin won the elections with slightly more than 63 % of the votes, which was predicted by exit polls almost the moment polls closed. (more…)
Walburga Habsburg Douglas and Åsa Lindstam outside the prison.
Walburga Habsburg Douglas, MP representing the Moderate party and Deputy Chairman of the OSCE:s parliamentary assembly was refused on Monday to visit the Ukrainian opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko in prison. Both the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry and the Prisons Authority rejected the application for a visit.
“Ukraine must offer transparency immediately and allow the international community to visit Yulia Tymoshenko in prison and see first-hand the conditions in which she is being kept. Ukrainian diplomats and parliamentarians have offered numerous accounts of how ‘comfortable’ the conditions are in Kharkiv for the former prime minister, harping on the fact that she has comforts of home, like a washing machine” said Walburga Habsburg adding that “the fact is that these messages are no substitute for in-person visits.If the government has a story to tell about the conditions in Ms. Tymoshenko’s cell, then authorities should allow international visitors at once.”
“By focusing the discussion on the prison, the Ukrainian foreign ministry has tried to divert attention from the larger issues related to rule of law and political prosecution,” stated Walburga Habsburg.
“In expression of solidarity and unity, it was agreed that the ambassadors of the EU member states in Minsk will all be withdrawn for consultations to their capitals,” EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said in a statement. It was also decided that all EU Member States will summon Belarusian ambassadors to their foreign ministries. (more…)
Don’t forget Ukraine
February 8th, 2012 UkraineAt the end of 2011 Julia Tymoshenko, former prime minister and leader of the Ukrainian Batkivshchyna Partyy, was transferred to a prison about 500 km outside the capital Kiev. This happened “despite the clear evidence of the grave state of her health and the fact that she was kept in a medical ward of the pre-trial detention center and cannot move without assistance,” explained a spokesperson for Batkivshchyna Party. Neither members of her family, nor her defense counselors were informed in advance about the transfer. (more…)
Delegation from Kirgizstan visited Stockholm
February 6th, 2012 Eastern Europe | Education | News | Uncategorized
The delegation visited the Swedish Parliament, and met with MP:s Gustav Blix, Kristina Hulting and Christian Holm from the Moderate Party, Liselott Hagberg from the Liberal Party and Carin Runeson from the Social Democratic Party. The participants were particularly interested in the structure and the political division of the Swedish Parliament. They were also curious about the different procedures for decision-making.
Moreover, the group was invited to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs where a roundtable discussion was held with well known Swedish Central Asia experts – among them Malena Mård, Head of Department for Eastern Europe and Central Asia. The role of Kirgizstan as a relatively new state, the relationship with EU and the measures taken to fight corruption in order to attract foreign investments in the country were topics brought up.
The Kyiv Post is reporting that representatives of the Ukrainian political opposition are planning to stop fighting against one another at the 2012 parliamentary election. According to an agreement on joint actions of the opposition, which was read out at a rally in Kyiv on January 22, it was stated that “only together can we achieve a common goal – to fight dictatorship and build a just and prosperous country!” . (more…)
The authorities in the city of Viciebsk have taken another repressive action against Vitsebsky Kurier, the oldest and currently only one independent newspaper in Eastern Belarus.
Late at night the Police stopped a car and violently arrested the newspaper’s chief editor and a journalist who had 10 000 copies of the latest edition of the newspaper in the car. (more…)
Additional Sentence for Presidential Candidate in Belarus
January 12th, 2012 Belarus | Free Belarus | NewsToday the authorities in the town of Shklou, Belarus, sentenced Mikola Statkevich, former oppositional presidential candidate, to a three-year prison term in ”closed regime”. (more…)
On January 6, 2012 a new amendment to a law restricting Internet access in Belarus came into force. According to the Global Legal Monitor (of the Law Library of the US Congress) the law “imposes restrictions on visiting and/or using foreign websites by Belarusian citizens and residents. Violation of these rules is recognized as a misdemeanor and is punished by fines of up to US$125”. (more…)
On March 4, Russia will hold presidential elections. “The whole setting is undemocratic” writes Anders Åslund, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute in Washington DC: Many individual candidates have been refused registration on bogus grounds. Two million signatures are required for individual candidates to be allowed to run. Previously, such candidates have been disqualified despite having collected two million signatures. The government maintains media control. “These elections cannot be judged as legitimate” writes Anders Åslund.
Following the trial against leading Belarusian human rights defender Ales Byalyatski, the Council of the European Union decided on December 16, 2011, to reinforce restrictive measures against the Belarusian regime and those involved in repressions against the democratic opposition and civil society. The Council added two more people – who have been involved in the trial of human rights defender Ales Byalyatski – to the list of those subject to an asset freeze and a ban from entering the EU.
Meanwhile, December 19, Belarusians marked the one year anniversary of the presidential elections of 2010, which ended in rare mass protests and a exceptional wave of repressions; a ruthless crackdown including targeted harassment of the opposition, independent journalists, as well as the rest of the Belarusian civil society.
On the eve of the election December 19, 2010, nearly 50,000 people gathered in the city centre of Minsk, as President Alexandr Lukashenka was declared the winner of a fraud-tainted ballot, in which each of his nine rivals was awarded less than 3 percent of the vote. At least 700 peaceful demonstrators were brutally arrested as authorities cracked down on the protest. Two of the oppositional candidates in the presidential election, are still in prison – Andrei Sannikau and Mikola Statkevitj.
Walburga Habsburg Douglas, Chairman of the EPP and likminded groups in the OSCE PA, presented the resolution.
The European People’s Party (EPP) calls upon the European Union, the OSCE and the Council of Europe to declare the State Duma elections in Russia, on 4th December 2011, as non-free and not meeting some OSCE commitments on generally accepted democratic standards. The mass arrests follwing the elections are also critiziced.
In a statement dated December 8, 2011, the EPP calls upon the European Union, the OSCE and the Council of Europe to monitor the presidential elections in Russia [ March 4, 2012] carefully.
The EPP points to the fact that the Russian authorities persistently refused ”to register new political parties under the pretext of various technical formalities”.
The EPP declares that Russian authorities must “stop non-compliance with their obligations in the sphere of human rights and democracy under the framework of the OSCE and CoE, changing the rules and practices of the process of registering political parties, in order to provide for unimpeded access for political forces to the presidential elections of 2012″.
The European People’s Party (EPP) calls upon the European Union, the OSCE and the Council of Europe to declare the State Duma elections in Russia, on 4th December 2011, as non-free and not meeting some OSCE commitments on generally accepted democratic standards. The mass arrests follwing the elections are also critiziced.
In a statement dated December 8, 2011, the EPP calls upon the European Union, the OSCE and the Council of Europe to monitor the presidential elections in Russia [ March 4, 2012] carefully. The EPP declares that Russian authorities must “stop non-compliance with their obligations in the sphere of human rights and democracy under the framework of the OSCE and CoE, changing the rules and practices of the process of registering political parties, in order to provide for unimpeded access for political forces to the presidential elections of 2012″.
Electoral Fraud in the Russian Duma Elections
December 8th, 2011 Foreign Policy | News | Russia | Seminars
From left Ulrik Nilsson, Elisabeth Björnsdotter Rahm, Stefan Caplan och Margareta Cederfelt.
Opportunities for electoral fraud were definitely present, said four moderate MPs who visited Russia during the Duma elections on December 4. On Thursday the team shared their experiences and analysis at a breakfast seminar arranged by the Jarl Hjalmarson Foundation.
In particular, the election observers pointed out, there were ample opportunities to cheat during the so-called mobile voting (for elderly at home) and at the many unattended ballot boxes in the more than 90,000 polling stations around the country. Ulrik Nilsson mentioned electoral lists where United Russia had beforehand been marked with a cross. Stefan Caplan noted that at some of the polling stations, he visited, there were more ballots than voters, after polling closed!
“United Russia’s grip of the Russian soul is decreasing significantly”, said Ulrik Nilsson at the breakfast seminar when he was asked about what the election results might lead to.
He and other observers gave the audience a unique insight into what happened in a number of the many polling stations. The images showed flaws in the system which allows for cheating and fraud.
Lack of valsekretess was also something that many of the observers noted. How ballots reviewed by election officials (all have a ballot where you check for the party you vote for) and how many people voted together. (more…)
For the past few days thousands of people have gathered to demonstrate against the result of the Duma elections in Russia on December 4. At least 15 000 people gathered in the city centre of Moscow on Monday, December 5; yesterday on Tuesday, December 6, thousands of people gathered not only in Moscow but also in St. Petersburg, as well as in some other large cities; all this makes it the first mass opposition protest in Russia since 1993.
Opposition supporters shouted “Putin is a crook and thief” referring both to the alleged election fraud and to widespread complaints that United Russia party is one of the major reasons for Russia’s widespread corruption. They also shouted “Russia without Putin” in a tense stand-off with hundreds of pro-Kremlin youth Nashi (Ours) and young men with emblems of United Russia’s youth wing (the Young Guards). More than 550 people were detained in the capital on Tuesday evening. About 250 people who tried to hold an unsanctioned rally were arrested in St. Petersburg. Another 25 protesters are said to have been detained at a similar protest in the city of Rostov-na-Donu. (more…)
On December 4 voting to elect the State Duma of the Russian Federation took place. Facing the collapse of public confidence and support, the ruling group was forced to organize the most dirty and fraudulent elections in the post-Soviet history. Campaign and the voting itself were accompanied by an unprecedented level of violations and abuses by the authorities. Manipulations of the public opinion, pressure on citizens, independent observers and members of election commissions, buying and rigging votes were undertaken at a scale unseen before.
There were no free access to these elections of the political forces. A number of them (including our Party) were on the non-constitutional grounds denied registration, and thus – the opportunity to take part in elections, to formulate its program of resolving the current political crisis and to uphold it before the citizens. (more…)
Duma Elections 2011: Choosing in the Absence of Choice
December 1st, 2011 Eastern Europe | Reports | Russia
Author: Oleg Buklemishev. Published 2011.
Dzmitry Kanavalau and Uladzislau Kavaliou has by the Belarusian Supreme Court been sentenced to death for the bombings in the Minsk subway that killed 15 people on April 11 this year. Dzmitry Kanavalau and Uladzislau Kavaliou are not affiliated with the Belarus political opposition and the witch hunt of the opposition that many feared would be a result of the bombing, has not been realized.
The Belarusian human rights organization Viasna (whose leader recently was sentenced to several years imprisonment) condemns the death penalty as such and believes that the investigation into the explosion in Minsk subway, as well as the trial of Dzmitry Kanavalau and Uladzislau Kavaliou, was neither professional nor convincing:
“Observers report serious procedural violations during the preliminary investigation and the judicial examination. The defendants’ right to legal protection has been gravely restricted. The defendants’ reports of physical and psychological pressure during the preliminary investigation failed to be properly examined. Numerous motions by the defense lawyers, aimed at clearing up the irregularities and contradictions of the presented evidence, were groundlessly dismissed.”
Viasna explains on its website that during the trial a number of victims have expressed doubt that Dzmitry Kanavalau and Uladzislau Kavaliou have been involved in terrorist attacks.
Today Ales Bialiatski, head of the leading Belarusian human rights organisation Viasna, the most well-known human rights defender in Belarus and Vice- President of International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), was sentenced to four and a half years of imprisonment in a reinforced prison.
He was also sentenced to confiscation of property and a fine of about $ 83 000 for “concealment of profits on an especially large scale in pursuance of prior agreements” in accordance with the article 243, part 2, of the Criminal Code. The trial, that was held in The Pershamaiski District Court of the City of Minsk, was followed by delegations from international human rights defenders, oppositional politicians and a lot of foreign diplomats. (more…)
Everything points to the fact that the Belarusian regime is struggling not only with a severe economic crisis but also with a conceptual crisis and is no longer able to produce a long-term strategy adequate to the scale of current threats, writes Kamil Kysiñski at the Center for Eastern Studies.
As a result of this, Alexander Lukashenko will be forced in the short term to make concessions to Russia, which will gradually restrict his independence. On the other hand, it will allow him to delay the danger of an uncontrollable social revolt. And, writes Kamil Kysiñski, everything points to a further escalation of repression aimed at the regime’s opponents.
Ukrainian tax authorities have re-opened four more criminal cases against imprisoned Yulia Tymoshenko, former Prime Minister and opposition leader, less than a month after she was sentenced to seven years in prison for crimes allegedly committed during her time as prime minister.
The four offences allegedly occurred at the time when Yulia Tymoshenko was head of the United Energy Systems of Ukraine (UESU) in the late 1990s. All cases deal with alleged tax evasion. UESU was then the main Ukrainian importer of the Russian natural gas. (more…)
