Protest theatre, not-for-women jobs, and Kurapaty defense – Belarus civil society digest
Good Neighbour festival gathered around 120 grassroots leaders in Minsk. Urban festival Kartonka held in Vitebsk for the first time at a local printing plant.
Petitions.by team starts a tour over Belarus to change the regions for the better. Civil society involves the business and the media community in the discussion of the restaurant near Kurapaty and puts a pressure on the restaurant’s owners.
The report by Legal Initiative CSO confirms human rights violations in the Belarusian army. Her Rights Center discussed not-for-women jobs in Belarus. UN Human Rights Council adopted a critical resolution on Belarus, ‘absurd by design and substance’ according to Belarusian MFA.
This and more in the new edition of Belarus civil society digest.
Summer festivals
Good Neighbor festival gathered around 120 grassroots leaders in Minsk. The event took place on June 30 and aimed to share best practices in engaging neighbours into joint activities to change the life of their local communities. The event was organized by the Office for European Expertise and Communications and supported by the US Embassy.
CSOs presented themselves at Our Day festival. On June 30, the Assembly of NGOs brought together civil society organizations and initiatives to present the third sector at a large music festival of Belarusian music Our Day. 12 CSOs organized their interactive, creative spots at a zone of civic activity.
ART picnic Mezhan’ to be held on July 14-15. This is an annual open-air festival held by downshifters who moved to live to Chyrvony Kastrychnik village in the Gomel region. They bought most of the houses there and organize festivals and excursions for the youth to promote the rural way of life. The art picnic includes fair of artisans, performances, as well as starry sky and amazing beauty of nature around.
Education
Biz4all-2 School trained new social entrepreneurs. The final presented 16 teams, which showed that many charitable projects and CSOs put the business component in the first place, which reduces dependence on foreign assistance. The Biz4all-2 School was held under Incubator of Social Entrepreneurship program, organized by ODB Brussels and supported by the EU.
A lecture in ECLAB. Source: eclab.by
ECLAB has the fourth graduation of students. During the academic year, the students took up to 10 academic courses. European College of Liberal Arts in Belarus (ECLAB) was created in 2014 as an informal alternative to the system of Belarus’ higher education with its shortcomings from the Soviet epoch. The Liberal Arts model combines research, contemporary art, intellectual journalism, and teaching.
Belarus Urban Fellowship accepts applications. The new program is organized by the New Ideas Center and designed for new leaders under 30 years’ old who is engaged in the development of regions and small cities. The first three sessions of the program will be held in Minsk and the fourth – in Berlin. Applications are accepted until July 15.
Media Management School opens its next set. During 5 months of training, the participants will deepen their knowledge in strategic planning, content management, the editorial board organization, etc. The School works since 2017 and has almost 50 graduates. The School is organized by Studio for Useful Competencies (Hrodna) and IBB School of Journalism. Deadline for applications is August 1.
Civil society activities
Petitions.by team starts a tour over Belarus to change the regions for the better. The organizers warn that they are not going to solve problems instead of local residents, but help to form a team of activists and tell how to achieve specific results. Petitions.by is a website through which every Belarusian can exercise her/his right to take part in governance through e-appeal to state bodies.
Civil society wins concessions while defending Kurapaty. The protest leaders attempted to enter into a dialogue with the authorities to discuss the situation around the place of Stalin-era executions near Minsk. They also involved the business and the media community in the discussion and put pressure on the restaurant owners near Kurapaty.
Belarusian civil society activists install a cross near Kurapaty. Source: racyja.com
Theatre play is dedicated to the construction of a battery plant. The independent theatre Krylya Khalopa in Brest presented a performance titled Antigone.IPOWER. The play is linked to the ancient Greek tragedy Antigone with the activity of Brest residents against the construction of a battery plant near the city. Thus, the art raises and communicates current public problems.
Talaka: 4 out of 5 Belarusian crowdfunding campaigns fail. During 5 years of its activity, a crowdfunding platform Talaka.by launched 1,824 initiatives. However, the results show that only 1 in 5 running projects successfully implemented. Most of them stop in the beginning. To solve this problem, Talaka kicks off its own crowdfunding campaign Talaka 2.0 to upgrade its functional.
Other
Discussion about not-for-women jobs took place in Minsk, on July 9. The event was organized by Her Rights Center and presented a survey on the list of prohibited jobs for women in Belarus. The list includes 181 professions and 42 working fields and forbids women to work as a diver, a carpenter or a driver of long-distance passenger buses with over 14 seats.
CASE Belarus: Employment of former prisoners can be profitable. The benefits of re-socialization and recruitment of former prisoners in Belarus can be up to $56K per person. This is one of the findings of a study on the assessment of the program for the reintegration of the released from prisons, conducted by the CASE Belarus Research Center. The study involved 30 former prisoners during 2014-2017.
Report on monitoring human rights violations in the Belarusian army released. 171 respondents took part in the online survey conducted by Legal Initiative CSO. 56.1% answered positively to the question of applying psychological pressure, a humiliation of honour and dignity during their obligatory military service. An interactive map with problematic military units of Belarus is expected on the results of monitoring.
UN Human Rights Council adopts a critical resolution on Belarus, renews country mandate. The resolution on Belarus was supported by 19 delegations, with 6 votes against and 21 abstentions. The document is based on the report prepared by Miklós Haraszti, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Belarus. Belarusian MFA calls the resolution ‘absurd by design and substance.’
Belarus Digest prepared this overview on the basis of materials provided by Pact. This digest attempts to give a richer picture of the recent political and civil society events in Belarus. It often goes beyond the hot stories already available in English-language media.
Bike Carnival, pressure on journalists, civil protests – Belarus civil society digest
Zrobim! environmental campaign opens its sixth season. Bike Carnival will be held in Minsk on May 12. Death penalty discussion resumes. Organizers of the annual Chernobyl Path rally start a local fundraising campaign.
Amendments to media law pass first reading in the parliament: BAJ suggestions not considered so far. BAJ monitoring report: in 2017, the situation was one of the toughest for Belarusian independent journalism in recent years. Belarusian Helsinki Committee presents a guide on human rights-based approach.
Brest citizens protest against dirty plant construction, protesters detained on May Day in Minsk. Drug convicts’ relatives still on hunger strike, seeking a meeting with Lukashenka. Belarusian Army ranked 41st out of 136 nations.
This and more in the new edition of Belarus civil society digest.
Civil society
Zrobim! environmental campaign opens its 6th season. Zrobim! is a part of Let’s Do It! global movement and organized by Belarusian environmental CSOs since 2012. Starting from April 21, volunteers clean unauthorized dumps and put them on an online map. The campaign will end on the Global Cleaning Day in September when the volunteers from 150 countries will come to the action all over the world.
Viva Rovar! Bike Carnival to be held in Minsk on May 12. This year the bicycle carnival Viva Rovar! (Viva, Bike!) is organized for the 3rd time. Last year, over 11,000 participants from Belarus, as well as Ukraine, Russia, Sweden, Lithuania and other countries registered for participation in the bicycle parade. The Minsk Cycling Society is among the organizers.
Round table on the abolition of the death penalty in Belarus held on April 18, Minsk. Organized by the Council of Europe the event involved members of the Belarusian Parliament and representatives of CSOs. Belarus is still the only executioner in Europe and Central Asia. Amnesty International in its annual report records at least two death sentences in Belarus in 2017 compared to at least four in 2016.
Charnobyl Path 2018 Source: greenbelarus.info
Charnobylski Shlykh action collects money through crowdfunding. Charnobylski Shlykh/ Chernobyl Path is a traditional action organized by political parties and CSOs on April 26 to remind about the consequences of the Chernobyl disaster in 1986. The organizers plan to raise 5K rubles ($2,500) to cover an information campaign. The recent political action on Freedom Day of March 25 collected almost $27K through crowdfunding.
Civil protests
Two thousand Brest citizens protesting dirty plant construction. On April 29, a Brest park was filled with protesters who gathered for a rally against the construction of the plant, approved by the authorities. A Chinese company is building a battery plant at a rapid pace near Brest. The work of the plant can cause severe damage to human health due to lead emissions.
Protesters detained on May Day in Minsk. At least nine people were arrested by the police before and during the protest in Minsk, which was organized by the REP Trade Union. The gathering was authorized by the city administration. Five of them are associates of the opposition leader Mikalai Statkevich. Later anarchist Vyachaslau Kasinerau was sentenced to 10 days of administrative arrest.
Drug convicts’ relatives still on hunger strike, seeking a meeting with Lukashenka. On April 27, the members of the Mothers-328 movement started an indefinite hunger strike, seeking to mitigate the punishment under criminal article 328. They believe that punishment for drug users is disproportionate and too severe.
Education
Leadership in Local Communities kicked off. The long-term educational program has been launched for the 3rd time to empower grassroots leaders to lead positive changes in local communities. 28 activists from 25 communities were selected for this round. The program is implemented by the Office for European Expertise and Communications in partnership with Pact and the support of USAID.
Free educational course on Internet marketing for small towns launched. The project Job Connected allows people who lost their jobs or not satisfied with the conditions of their work, to acquire competencies to earn remotely. The educational online course runs from April to July. 440 people registered for participation, including residents of over 40 small Belarusian towns.
Media
Amendments to media law pass first reading: BAJ suggestions not considered so far. The Parliament approved the changes to the Law on Mass Media in the first reading with 98 MPs voted pro, 2 voted contra and 2 people abstained. One of the innovations is the mandatory identification of users posting comments on websites. A special commission will consider the suggestions of the Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ) before the second reading.
BAJ Monitoring Report 2017. The Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ) released an annual report on the situation in the sphere of Belarusian mass media last year. The key finding is that the situation appeared to be one of the toughest for Belarusian independent journalism in recent years. Thus, 101 cases of detention of journalists on duty were registered in 2017 compared to 13 cases in 2016.
Belarusian Helsinki Committee presents a guide on human rights-based approach. The guide in a user-friendly manner gives deeper and specialized knowledge how to add human rights to daily life, civic projects, and business. The service is provided in collaboration with The Danish Institute for Human Rights.
Other
Belarusian army. Source: nn.by
European Parliament adopted a resolution on Belarus on April 19. The resolution supports the EU’s critical engagement with Belarus, as long as it is conditioned on the Belarusian authorities’ complete respect for fundamental freedoms and human rights. The document urges continued EU support to civil society organizations and human rights defenders.
IMF improves Belarus’ GDP growth forecast. Belarus’s economy will expand by 2.8% in 2018 and by 2.4 in 2019, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said in the April edition of its World Economic Outlook report. Earlier, the fund forecasted Belarus’ GDP growth at 0.7% in 2018.
Belarusian Army ranked 41st out of 136 nations. Last year Belarus took the 49th place in Global Firepower list. Military resources, diversity of weapon systems, natural resources, industry and geographical features, available manpower are taken into account. In 2017, the country increased arms exports by 15% and earned over $1 billion.
Belarus Digest prepared this overview on the basis of materials provided by Pact. This digest attempts to give a richer picture of the recent political and civil society events in Belarus. It often goes beyond the hot stories already available in English-language media.
