Declaration adopted on 6 October 2010
CONF/PLE(2010)DEC1

Belarus

The Conference of International NGOs of the Council of Europe:

° reaffirms its commitment to cooperate with and assist independent civil society organizations in Belarus that are also inspired by Council of Europe fundamental values of democracy, human rights and the rule of law;

° takes note that the coming months are critical for Belarus with a presidential election scheduled for December 19, 2010;

° expresses the profound hope that in this pre-electoral period - and of course beyond - Belarusian civil society will be able to exercise internationally recognized rights to freedom of expression and freedom of assembly;

°conveys to Belarusian authorities its strong recommendation that in this pre-election period - and beyond - they act in accordance with the principles and standards set down in the Council of Europe Committee of Ministers Recommendation (2007)14, most particularly the Articles dealing with Supervision¹;

°notes that Article 193/1 of the Belarusian Criminal Code has not yet been repealed, though it is in contradiction to the terms of the above CMRec(2007)14, notably Articles 3 (basic principles) and the Articles dealing with legal personality²;

°notes that Article 193/1 has not been applied in the last year, and trusts that this attitude on the part of Belarusian authorities will continue in the pre-electoral period and beyond, until the early repeal of the Article;

°expresses its full readiness to continue to play its institutional part in Council of Europe policies and programmes established to assist Belarus to reach all standards of democracy, human rights and the rule of law such that Belarus can in due course be accepted as the 48^th member state.