Following last week's arrest of Ales Bialiatski, head of the NGO Viasna and Vice-President of the International Human Rights Federation, on charges of “tax evasion”, Andres Herkel (Estonia, EPP/CD), the rapporteur on Belarus for the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), has urged the authorities in Belarus to guarantee the physical and psychological integrity of Mr Bialiatski and to put an end to all forms of harassment against him and other human rights defenders in the country. "Mr Bialiatski’s arrest is yet another instance in a pattern of harassment and intimidation towards civil society. It is high time political abuse of the criminal law in Belarus comes to an end,” he stresses.