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. Belarusian authority fail to reveal the fate of Yury Zakharenko, Viktor Gonchar, Anatoly Krasovsky and Dmitry Zavadsky.

The International Convention for the Protection of all Persons against enforced disappearances was ratified 23rd of November 201o by Iraq. This means that the 20th and last ratification necessary for the entry into force of this international treaty was reached. In accordance with article 39, the Convention entered into force on the 23rd of December 2010 (30 days after the Notification of the 20th ratification).

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 mourns for Yury Zakharenko, Anatoly Krasovsky, Viktor Gonchar and Dmitry Zavadsky. We remember.

CIWR.ORG