Indymedia Belarus about the Belarusian situation

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<p>This survey document is proposed to the adoption by consensus for substantiation of the limitations of the "Public agreement of  Indymedia <a href="http://wikitravel.org/en/Belarus">Belarus</a>" concerning safety of media-activists (see p.3.4 and all the paragraphs referred to it)
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<h4>1. Forms of punishments for political activity.</h4>
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Public meetings, not sanctioned by the state, can entail punishment to 15 days of arrest or large money penalties. As the experience of recent months shows, punishment is possible even for meetings, conducted in enclosed accommodations (see the case ROO "Perspektiva" October 2005).
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Public statements and activity on behalf of groups, movements, and associations unregistered in the state bodies are declared illegal. The form of punishment - up to two years of prison.
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Public statements, which contain criticism of the President and organs of authority, can be treated by the court as slander and entail up to 5 years of imprisonment.
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The most severe forms of punishment among those provided by the law are applied to activists accused of offences of non-political character (see the case of Marinich). 
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Students undergo additional pressure: participation in political or social activities beyond the framework of the state public association BRSM (Belarusian State Union of the Youth) is semi-official ground for pursuit of such students and is a basis for their expulsion from university.
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<h4>2. Practice of punishment application</h4>
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The indicated methods of coercive pursuit are not total. At the same time, as the practice of the last five years shows, they are a convenient tool in the hands of authority for suppression and frightening of any oppositional groups, regardless of their ideological direction. As a rule, these tools are applied suddenly and effectively, as soon as the special services make a decision about the suppression or weakening of any group.
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<h4>3. Position of Indymedia Belarus.</h4>
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On the basis of the right of media-activists to the protection from the attacks listed above, the Indymedia Belarus team adopts the following positions, represented in the public agreement:
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1) Each activist has the right to anonymity - keeping his/her real name and any personal data secret to the limits he/she determines himself/herself.
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2) Support of regular open meetings in the real world as the basic tool of work doesn’t entirely realize the right of activists to the protection from the state. Participants of a meeting can be detained by the police at any moment, registered, and arrested for the period up to 15 days. The impossibility to guarantee safety to any participant of an open meeting substantially decreases democratism of this approach.
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3) Conducting open discussions on the website in accordance with the mechanisms described in the <a href="http://belarus.indymedia.ru/1645">"Public agreement"</a> allows each participant valuably and democratically report his/her opinion to the other members of the team. At the same time the right of activists to the protection from the juridical prosecution is kept, as the disclosure of their personal data is not required.
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Without rejecting public meetings as a method of work on the whole, we have to admit that today their use as a basic tool of cooperation is less effective and more risky way than discussions in an appropriate public section of the web-site in combination with personal contacts "face to face".
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Mitigation or changes in the form of the state policy of pursuit of political activists can change this situation. The Indymedia Belarus team undertakes to examine a renovated version of this document once per six months and to discuss the possibility of complete or gradual removal of the limitations formulated in p.3.4 of the public agreement.</i>

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