Sanctions for participation in unauthorized peaceful protests under Belarus’s Public Events Law

Facts

The authors of the communications are 16 Belarusian nationals who either participated in or publicly called for peaceful protests between 2016 and 2020. The authors were arrested and charged under article 23.34 of the Code of Administrative Offenses for violating regulations on mass gatherings given that the protests were held without prior authorization, as required by Belarus’s Public Events Act. They were subjected to administrative sanctions, including fines and short-term detention (5–10 days), and their appeals in domestic courts were unsuccessful.

The authors claim that these sanctions violated their rights under article 19 of the Covenant relating to freedom of expression and article 21, which guarantees the right to peaceful assembly. They argue that their peaceful participation in protests and public calls for engagement were legitimate expressions of political and social opinion. The authors assert that requiring prior authorization for peaceful assemblies imposes an undue restriction on these fundamental rights. They further contend that supervisory review procedures in Belarus are ineffective and do not constitute a remedy that must be exhausted.

Admissibility

The Committee found the authors’ claims under articles 19 and 21 of the Covenant to be sufficiently substantiated for purposes of admissibility and rejected the State party’s argument that the authors failed to exhaust domestic remedies by not pursuing supervisory review. Similarly, it found the claims under article 2 (2), concerning the State party’s general obligation to adopt necessary measures, to be incompatible with the Covenant and therefore inadmissible under article 3 of the Optional Protocol.

Merits

The Committee found that penalizing individuals for participating in peaceful protests— solely on the grounds that the events were unauthorized—violates the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly under articles 19 and 21. The Committee emphasized that these rights may only be restricted under very specific conditions—such as to protect national security, public order, or the rights of others—and even then, only when restrictions are strictly necessary and proportionate. It recalled that it had found similar violations in past cases involving the same domestic legal framework and saw no reason to depart from its established jurisprudence.

Recommendations

The State party should:

• (a) provide the authors with an effective remedy;
• (b) take appropriate steps to reimburse the current value of the fines and any legal costs incurred by the authors in relation to the domestic proceedings against them;
• (c) take all steps necessary to prevent similar violations from occurring in the future
• (d) revise its normative framework, in particular its Law on Mass Media, consistent with its obligation under article 2 (2) of the Covenant, with a view to ensuring that the rights under articles 19 and 21 may be fully enjoyed in the State party

Implementation

Deadline for implementation: 17 January 2024