Over Barrier

Over Barrier
Over Barrier
Chairperson	Tsimafei Dranchuk
Vice-Chairman	Zmicier Kaspiarovich
Founded	22 May 2007
Headquarters	Minsk, Belarus
Website	nad.barierom@gmail.com

Over Barrier (Belarusian: Над Бар'ерам) -- Belarusian Committee on protection of prisoners’ rights. It was created on May 22, 2007.

History

On May 22, 2007 in Vilnius, Lithuania at was announced about creation of the Belarusian Committee on protection of prisoners’ rights «OVER BARRIER» (BCPPR «OVER BARRIER»)[1]. The decision to organize the constituent assembly on territory of Lithuania was made due impossibility of organization registration in Belarus.

20 citizens of Belarus who in different situations faced problems and imperfection of penitentiary systems of Belarus took part in the constituent assembly.

The organizing committee on creation of the BCPPR «OVER BARRIER» included former political prisoners Tsimafey Dranchuk and Dzmitry Kasperovich, public activists Veronika Vygovskaya and Christina Shatikova, and other participants of the constituent assembly.

The constituent assembly has charged Tsimafey Dranchuk and Veronika Vygovskaya to prepare necessary documents for registration of the BCPPR «OVER BARRIER» in the Republic of Lithuania.

Leaders of BCPPR "Over Barrier"

Tsimafei Dranchuk

Zmicier Kaspiarovich

Veranika Vygovskaya

The aims of creation

Creation of the BCPPR «OVER BARRIER» is caused by absence of working in Belarus human rights organizations that deal with a problem of Belarusian prisoners on a large scale, and concentrates exclusively on protection of the rights of political prisoners, which is minimal in comparison with total arrested. Thus practice shows that the scale of violation of the rights of ordinary prisoners is bigger, but none of them has opportunity to receive a high-grade legal support, to draw attention of the public to the problem and to achieve justice.

The priority purpose of the Committee is attraction of public attention to the problems of prisoners in Belarus, whose rights are violated, with no discrimination, whether in what of places of correction or restriction of freedom they are, are they a victim of a miscarriage of justice or punished according to the law.

It’s clear, how difficult is for our society to understand motives and acts of people, which have ended up in jails. Many prisoners are not classical victims with the pure past and clear future. They have violated the law, but for it have already had severe punishment, having lost freedom, appearing isolated from a society, relatives and friends, having lost many rights. But they also as other citizens of our country have rights guaranteed by the UN Declaration of human rights and the Constitution of Belarus. Nobody has rights to torture, to beat, to kill, to humiliate human advantage, to violate none. More over lawful representatives of the society on behalf of law enforcement bodies should not turn punishment into crime.

Also, the purposes of the Committee is distribution of the information on facts of violation of the rights of prisoners irrespective of, whether they are suspected, accused or convicted; creation of monitoring of violation of the rights of prisoners in Belarus; contribution to restoration of justice in the attitude to illegally convicted or those whose rights were broken.

On the most provoking violations BCPPR organizes distribution of press releases and achieves reaction of representatives responsible for observance of legality.

Aims, tasks and methods of activity BCPPR «OVER BARRIER»

Main aims of the BCPPR «Over Barrier» are:

- Protection of the rights of the Belarusian prisoners and people under investigation;

- Contribution to observance of justice concerning penitentiary system of Belarus;

- Creation of monitoring of violation of the rights of prisoners in Belarus;

Tasks of the BCPPR «Over Barrier»:

- Contribution to restoration of justice in relation to illegally convicted and whose rights have been broken;

- Assistance to development of legal literacy among Belarusian regime – by distribution of the information on fundamental laws of persons suspected, accused or convicted;

- Development of public control over observance of the rights of prisoners of penitentiary systems of Belarus;

- Carrying out of thematic researches;

- Spread of knowledge about freedom from tortures and cruel treatment;

- Carrying out of information campaigns;

- Assistance to increase of public activity, civil consciousness, an intellectual and cultural level of the Belarusian prisoners.

For achievement of the purposes and tasks BCPPR «Over Barrier» uses the following methods of activity:

- Attraction of public attention to the problems of prisoners in Belarus, whose rights are violated, with no discrimination, whether in what of places of correction or restriction of freedom they are, are they a victim of a miscarriage of justice or punished according to the law;

- Distribution of information materials about activity, aims and tasks of the BCPPR «Over Barrier» among prisoners and their relatives, with the purpose of their attraction to the information on violation of their rights;

- Distribution of the information on facts of violation of the rights of prisoners irrespective of, whether they are suspected, accused or convicted;

- Carrying out scientific, educational and other actions with attraction of experts in different fields according to the current legislation of Belarus;

- Rendering the consulting, information, organizational assistance to the prisoner and to their relatives.