The last week of May marks the International Week of the Disappeared.

Four prominent Belarusians were subjected to enforced disappearance in 1999-2000.

Ex-minister of Internal Affairs, General of Police Forces Yury Zakharenko was kidnapped not far from his house in the evening of May 7,1999.

On September 16, 1999 buisenessman Anatoly Krasovsky and Vice-Speaker of the Supreme Soviet of Belarus Viktor Gonchar were abducted at the entrance of a public sauna.

On July 7, 2000 on his way to Minsk-2 Airport mysteriously disappeared cameraman Dmitry Zavadsky.

The Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on Legal Affairs and Human Rights suspects involvement in crimes against humanity, including organization and execution of forced kidnappings and murder, of former head of the electoral staff of Aleksander Lukashenko Viktor Sheiman, former Interior Ministers Yuri Sivakov and Vladimir Naumov, and Commander of Special Response Group Dmitry Pavlichenko. The international community has repeatedly appealed to the Belarusian authorities to openly investigate the cases of the disappearances. All the appeals were ignored.

The United Nations Convention for the protection of all persons from enforced disappearances was adopted on June 29 2006 as the first resolution of the new Human Rights Council. On November 13 2006 the Third Committee of the General Assembly adopted the text with 103 co-sponsors (Excel file). Finally on December 20 2006 the text was adopted by the plenary of the General Assembly.

On March 19th Benin signed the United Nations Convention for the protection of all persons from enforced disappearances. On March 29th St. Vincent and the Grenadines put its signature under the Convention too. Therefore, at the moment 83 UN member states signed and 18 ratified the Convention. Two more ratifications are required for the Convention to entry into force.

On January 16th 2007 Civil Initiative We Remember appealed to the Belarusian authorities with the demand to sign and ratify the Convention. The appeal was ignored.

Civil Initiative We Remember expresses its hope that among the first acts signed by the Free Belarus will be the Convention for the protection from enforced disappearances — the document intended to stop the phenomenon of the enforced disappearance and to rehabilitate the rights of the hundreds of thousands of victims of the disappearances around the Globe.

Civil Initiative We Remember grieves and remembers Yury Zakharenko, Anatoly Krasovsky, Viktor Gonchar and Dmitry Zavadsky.

CIWR.ORG