Activists Want World Attention on Belarus’ Human Rights Abuses

7 August 2008

Olga Kozulina, Raisa Mikhailovskaya call for release of political prisoners

By Jane Morse
Staff Writer

Washington -- Alyaksandr Kozulin appeared on television and denounced the corruption of the current Belarusian government. Now he sits in prison.

“We need the help of the United States and the international community,” says his daughter, Olga Kozulina, who has been working for her father’s release since his imprisonment in July 2006.

Kozulina sent her message via a video that was shown July 24 at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations in New York at a panel discussion called Courageous Voices: Speaking Out for Prisoners of Conscience.

The event featured speakers from Belarus, Burma, Cuba, Eritrea, Syria and Uzbekistan who are either former prisoners of conscience or have family members who now are imprisoned for seeking political change in their homelands. (See “World Community Renews Call to Free Prisoners of Conscience.”)

Olga Kozulina sent the video with her remarks to New York because she was in Washington for an event marking Captive Nations Week, which honors the bravery of dissidents and democracy activists. There, she was recognized by President Bush, who assured her and other dissidents from Cuba, Iran and North Korea that the United States is renewing its call to release prisoners of conscience around the world.

“The role of free nations like ours,” Bush said, “is to put pressure on … the world’s tyrants and strengthen the prisoners who are striving for their liberty.”

The United States has imposed a growing number of sanctions against Belarus for its human rights abuses. Such sanctions include the freezing of government assets held in the United States and a prohibition on U.S. companies and individuals doing business with the Belarusian state-owned enterprise Belneftekhim.

But, according to several activists, little has changed in Belarus. Numerous political opposition figures have been detained or imprisoned in recent weeks and months.

International Commitments to Human Rights

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the U.N. General Assembly on December 10, 1948, declares everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression, freedom of peaceful assembly and association and the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. But 60 years later, there are still countries that hold prisoners who have done nothing other than to exercise their internationally recognized rights.

In June, the United States and 63 other U.N. member states sponsored the Declaration of Prisoners of Conscience, which calls for a global commitment to work for the freedom of prisoners of conscience and to make the release of these prisoners a key international priority.

To drive home the fact that the release of prisoners of conscience is not an abstract concept, the U.S. Mission to the United Nations in New York hosted the July 24 a panel discussion to allow activists intimately familiar with the problems of prisoners of conscience to tell their stories to more than 120 diplomats, journalists and representatives of nongovernmental organizations.

The Story Of Alyksandr Kosulin 

In 2006, Kozulin, former rector of Belarus State University and deputy education minister, dared to run against President Alyaksandr Lukashenka, who has controlled the country since 1994. Kozulin, according to his daughter, made a televised appearance in which he condemned the “criminal activities and corruption” of Lukashenka. Lukashenko won the elections on March 19, 2006; one week later his government sentenced Kozulin to prison for five and a half years.

The United States and Amnesty International have called for Kozulin’s release.

Today, Kozulin’s daughter is an advocate for freedom for her father and for all political prisoners in Belarus. In June, she spoke to the European Exchange and the Human Rights Association in Berlin. The Belarusian Social Democratic Party-Gramada has nominated Kozulina for the parliamentary elections slated to take place this September.

Raisa Mikhailovskaya, producer of a documentary film on prisoners of conscience in Belarus, told the panel in New York that some 53 dissidents have been imprisoned since Lukashenka took power. Thanks to the pressure put on the Belarusian government by the United States and the European Union, some of them have been released, she said.

“Joint action by the United States and the European Union and an uncompromisingly firm position on their part could force Lukashenko’s government to yield in a major way, and solve the problem of the prisoners of conscience once and for all,” Mikhailovskaya said.