In three London locations activists of civil initiative “Free Belarus Now” staged a peaceful protest against the human rights violations, capital punishment and low attitude to relatives of the executed in Belarus.
Iryna Bahdanava, the sister of ex-presidential candidate Andrey Sannikau, representatives of Belarus Free Theatre Mikalay Khalezin and Natallia Kaliada also took part in the performance.
Famous actor Jude Law called all non-indifferent people to join the action in his video message.
In the course of performance “Give a Body Back!” the activists in white body backs were lying on the pavement near police wagons aiming at drawing public attention to human rights violation in Belarus, in particular to the fact that according to Belarusian law, bodies of executed men are never returned to their families and places of their burial are never revealed. In 1999 the UN Human Rights Committee defined such attitude to relatives of the executed as torture and inhuman treatment.
In 2013, Belarus remains the last country in Europe not to have abandoned the death penalty. In March, 2012 Uladislau Kavaliou and Dzmitry Kanavalau were put to death after being convicted of alleged carrying out the act of terrorism in Minsk metro on April 11, 2011. Lyubou Kavaliova, Uladzislau’s mother, keeps questioning her son’s guilt.
Belsat
