The Belarusian side has considered the Belarus section of the US State Department’s 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices. The analysis of such reports in recent years shows that their authors have become hostages of the "total criticism" genre, from year to year pursuing the course on biased and one-sided interpretation of human rights situation in Belarus. The American side declares such noble purposes of the preparation of these documents as assistance to the expansion of freedom and democracy, observance of the principle of non-interference into internal affairs of sovereign states. However, the persistency with which the Unites States relies in the report exclusively on the opinion of opponents of the Belarusian Government does not meet the declared criterions and is a striking example of the groundless use of human rights issues as an instrument of pressure on a sovereign state. Belarus regards such methods as absolutely unacceptable and counterproductive.

Current report has not become an exception. It mainly contains those occurrences and examples on which the Belarusian side has already made detailed comments over the previous years. Consequently, the information provided by official Belarusian authorities has during many years intentionally been ignored or questioned.

Particularly incorrect and illogical is the criticism of some provisions of the Belarusian legislation and law-enforcement measures against a background of serious violations of human rights and incidents of discriminatory practices in the United States itself, reported by international human rights organizations.

Starting from the introduction of the report, categorical and biased negative assessments of the activities of the country’s leadership are given, conclusions discrediting Belarus are highlighted. All that predetermines generally negative tone of the document as a whole.

In this connection, a question becomes appropriate: do authors of the report have the moral right to make such assessments with respect to other states, while in their own country actions of the President on the establishment of special military tribunals breaking not only US laws but also the Geneva Conventions are permitted? The US Supreme Court found these actions unconstitutional. It is also worth drawing attention to the serious criticism of President George W. Bush by representatives of the Democratic Party in the US Senate for "unprecedented pretensions for uncontrolled power". This criticism has become a response to results of the research held by the authoritative edition "The Boston Globe", according to which George W. Bush during the term in office has made hundreds of laws signed by him as not obligatory for implementation.

The characteristic feature of the report is that while consistent efforts of the Government to improve situation in the country (protection of refugees, the rights of the child, human trafficking) are occasionally mentioned, the real progress achieved in Belarus has been ignored to the maximum.

The report is rich in the so called "evidence" of alleged violations of political rights of the people of Belarus. In view of this, we again point out that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has more than once provided the American side with detailed information, including in the framework of the OSCE Permanent Council, about all cases of the so called "political prisoners" and "politically motivated processes" in Belarus. It is about persons with respect to whom penalties for unlawful acts, envisaged by the legislation, were imposed regardless of their political convictions. By their actions, they have frequently infringed upon the rights of other citizens, including the rights to freedom of movement and rest at the places where unauthorized actions were held.

Criticism of Belarusian authorities for alleged dispersals of peaceful demonstrations and arrests of their participants is also extremely biased. The Belarusian legislation guarantees freedom to hold mass events not violating public order and not infringing upon the rights and interests of other citizens. At the same time it is envisaged that the holding of mass events should be organized with permission. The Constitution of the Republic of Belarus inseparably links the implementation of the rights of citizens to freedom of assembly, rallies and street demonstrations with public security and lawfulness of their organization and holding. One of the examples of implementing this right was an unimpeded holding of so called congress of democratic forces of Belarus on October 1-2, 2005, during of which the united candidate from opposition for the presidential elections was elected.

Analyzing the situation with freedom of assembly and mass demonstrations in the United States, one cannot but notice a number of negative incidents of restriction of freedom of assembly, which resulted in broad critical response among the American public. One of the last examples is the arrest by the police in March 2006 in San Diego County, South California, of 150 schoolchildren for participation in demonstrations against a new bill that toughens measures with regard to illegal immigration. In Los-Angeles, about 100 schoolchildren were detained in the similar situation.

Allegations that "KGB entered homes, conducted unauthorized searches, and read mail without warrants" are unfounded and not confirmed by the evidence. Therefore, we draw attention to the Patriot Act of 2001 being implemented in the United States and to a number of other initiatives by President George W. Bush (for instance, actions of the US National Security Agency, authorized by him in 2002 on intercepting telephone talks of the American citizens without authorization of judicial bodies), which give to the US law enforcement structures an opportunity to interfere into the private life of American citizens.

In this situation criticism by authors of the report of the practice of control by special services of talks and correspondence of citizens allegedly existing in Belarus looks baseless and hypocritical. Situation with political parties and public organizations in the Republic of Belarus is misrepresented in the report. The interaction of authorities with them is carried out exclusively in the framework of the law. Procedure of the state registration of political parties, public associations and their organizational structures, as well as grounds to reject the registration are set forth in detail in laws of the Republic of Belarus on public associations and on political parties. Existing weakness of political parties in Belarus can be rather explained by failure of the parties' leadership to provide them support in the society. A number of non-governmental organizations acting in Belarus, their consistent growth, (2214 NGOs in 2003, 2247 – in 2005) are evidence of absurdity of the allegation about restriction of their activity by the authorities.

Statements about the unreasonable and politically motivated closure of a number of NGOs and their resource centers are groundless. Thus, the reason for the liquidation of Belaruskaya Perspektiva in December 2005 was systematic disregard by the organization of warnings from the registering body on the inadmissibility of use of residential apartment as legal address. Introduction of such norm is based on the need to protect the rights of residents to private life. Moreover, having the international status, the mentioned association refused to meet the requirement of the law on the use of the word "Belaruskii" in its title. Systematic and severe violation of the current legislation (lack of the legal address, existence of supervisory board not set forth by the Charter, refusal to submit a copy of the filled form of sociological survey) brought IISEPS in April 2005 to the liquidation.

References to the complexity and high cost of the registration procedure of organizations in the Ministry of Justice are also related to the category of unfounded ones. The package of documents required under the registration is quite simple (5 positions only), there is no necessity to fill out any forms. The list of grounds under which public association or political party can be refused state registration is well-defined and exhaustive. Many defects which appear during the registration, if they surmountable, are removed in the working order. A number of children's, youth and veteran's public organizations are exempt from any registration fees at all.

The US legislation currently in force with regard to NGO's is of interest. Thus, legislation of some of the US states can be an example of more than tough requirements to the NGO registration procedure. For instance, the Law of the State of New York on nonprofit organizations commits the NGOs to submit for the registration a special certificate issued by state administration, and a whole number of other additional permissions issues by different state authorities and officials. Moreover, the law broadly empowers the Attorney General of the State in the field of regulation of public organizations' activities: possibility of liquidation of NGO under his claim, dismissal of NGO's leader, restrictions of the rights of all of its members, etc. Tough and at the same time vague requirements are imposed with respect to titles of NGOs. During the registration with tax authorities, founders of NGOs fill out a form containing 240 questions, most of which are not directly related to finances. In case of liquidation of an NGO, the court has the right to require the leader or employees to cover the costs.

Authors of the report criticize the Law of the Republic of Belarus "On introduction of changes and amendments to several legislative acts of the Republic of Belarus on strengthening responsibility for acts against a person and public security". It is necessary to underline that the amendments are by no means contrary to the Constitution and do not infringe upon lawful rights and interests of citizens as regards freedom of assembly and participation in activities of parties and organizations. Moreover, they are based on international legal experience. For instance, the conjugation of activities of the political party or public association with personal violence, with encroachment on their rights and freedoms or with the prevention of performing by them state, public, or family duties is an indispensable condition for the criminal responsibility. The law introduces additional norms to maintain public order which establish responsibility for actions to prepare persons for participation in unauthorized group actions. Criminal responsibility for discrediting the Republic of Belarus before the international organization or foreign state, as well as responsibility for defamation against President, for insulting President and representatives of authorities is not contrary to the Constitution and international practice.

It is necessary to note that the US criminal legislation contains provisions which are analogous to amendments made by the Law to the Criminal Code and Code of Criminal Procedure of Belarus. At the same time, the US legislation describes the relevant crimes in more detail and envisages more severe measures of punishment in comparison with similar Belarusian amendments. For instance, whoever provokes and organizes actions that violate public order is fined and/or imprisonment not more than five years in the US, whereas according to the Belarusian law – up to two years.

The report presents a number of far-fetched and often openly distorted facts on observance of personal immunity in Belarus. Thus, section 1 cites false statements about "unexplained circumstances" of death of two persons "in police custody". Initiation of criminal proceedings with regard to M. Mois's death was refused for the lack of corpus delicti in actions of police. Regarding the death ov V. Shevelenko, the police officer S. Magonov was found guilty and convicted to 8 years of medium-security imprisonment. The link between the situation around the Union of Belarusian Poles and the J. Waraksa's death, which as irrefutably established by investigation was committed by previously convicted neighbor of the victim by selfish means, is frivolous. Statements about allegedly campaign launched by the Government against the Polish minority are inadmissible and provoking inter-ethnic discord. The reason for the V. Grodnikov's death, who had never been a professional journalist, was, in accordance with the investigation, his own carelessness when he fell being under influence of alcohol.

Against the background of criticism in the report about allegedly "beatings of detainees and prisoners" in Belarusian prisons it is appropriate draw attention of the US authorities to numerous facts of cruel treatment by American military men with respect to Iraqi prisoners of war disclosed by international human rights organizations in 2005, particularly at the military base "Mercury" (Fallujah, Iraq), in Abu Ghraib prison, at the military base "Guantanamo". Evidences of witnesses and participants of the cruel treatment with respect to prisoners prove the disregard by the United States of standards of holding interrogations in accordance with the Geneva Conventions.

Criticism on long periods in pretrial detention of M. Marinich and S. Skrebets is groundless as long as the article 127 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Republic of Belarus envisages deadline for the detention at the preliminary stage of investigation (18 months), which was not exceeded.

In this respect, it is appropriate to remind to authors of the report about much longer detentions of prisoners of the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay without court and investigation, three of whom committed suicide during the night on June 10-11, 2006, not being able to sustain unlawfulness of the US authorities. During four and a half of years since the prison had been in place, 41 suicide attempts were registered. All of this is evidence of despair of people who were put by the US authorities practically out of any law, deprived of basic protection, including the right to communicate with outer world and to legal to have their cases considered by the court of law.

Statements of the report about "the practice of hazing new army recruits through beatings and other forms of physical and psychological abuse" are contrary to fact. According to the official information, general crime situation in the Armed Forces of Belarus since the second half of the 90th has considerably improved. Thus, the number of crimes per 1000 military men has more than twice within the last 10 years. In accordance with the legislation, an offender can be brought to the criminal responsibility even for a verbal insult of military man or for an extortion of military allowances goods. For the purpose of preventive measures against offences in the Army, the Ministry of Defense actively interacts with the non-governmental organization – Committee of soldiers' mothers, activists of which only in 2005 held 48 meetings with military men. As a result, a decline not only in number, but also of degree of gravity of offences is observed.

Activities of judicial system of the Republic of Belarus is presented in the report in intentionally perverted way. Taking into consideration the existing in the United States procedure of appointment of all judges of the US Supreme Court by the President, critical references to authority of the President of Belarus to appoint 6 of 12 members of the Constitutional Court are unconvincing. It is worth notice that mixed procedure of forming of constitutional control bodies exists in a whole number of the Western countries, including Austria, Canada and France. One can not agree with a provision of the report saying that there is allegedly no means of enforcing the Constitutional Court decisions and it does not challenge presidential initiatives. The Constitutional Court annually reports about enforcement of its decisions by appropriate state bodies. Concerning "challenging presidential initiatives", the Constitutional Court has the right to examine constitutionality of acts by President only in case if this procedure is initiated by the National Assembly, Supreme Court, Supreme Economic Court and Government. Contrary to "facts" presented in the report, in compliance with article 23 of the Code on Criminal Procedure of Belarus criminal trials in all Belarusian courts are public. Closed trials are permitted only in exceptional cases – to secure state secrets, to protect witnesses, to prevent disclosure of information about intimate parts of life of persons involved in the trial, etc. At the same time, such trials are conducted under observation of all rules of court proceedings. The reference to activities of a jury trial contained in the report is also evidence that its authors are not informed about the actual situation: there is no such institution in Belarus.

Clearly unnecessary attention paid in the report to "violations" of freedom of speech and press in Belarus, the most of which are not confirmed by concrete facts. Actions of the Ministry of Information with regard to mass media of all kinds of ownership fully complied with the Law of the Republic of Belarus on press and other mass-media. Authors of the report "pull out" single facts about alleged "restriction" of independent mass-media and present them as "severe violations" by the Belarusian side of its international obligations. So called "evidence" of deterioration of the situation of independent mass-media and the reduction of their outlets are clearly presented in a biased way. Thus, the distribution of Belarusian press media, regardless of the form of ownership, is conducted on a contractual basis between editors and "Belpochta" enterprise. The refusal by "Belpochta" to continue business relations with a number of editions had purely economic reasons and was usually caused by careless implementation by editions of contract provisions. Retail of newspapers and magazines through the network of enterprises "Belsoyuzpechat" is also conducted on a contractual basis in accordance with the principle of freedom of activities of all agents of economy.

Statements about near monopoly on television broadcasting by the Government seem, at the least, unqualified and emotional. Officers of KGB can not censor activities of the Belarusian Television broadcast nationwide since it is just not part of their functional duties, as well as in view of the independent and equal status of these state organizations. The accusation of stopping by television station LAD of rebroadcasting "EuroNews" is absurd since "EuroNews" has round-the-clock broadcasting in Belarus as an independent television station. Russian channels RTR and NTV are continuing broadcasting to the territory of Belarus within their frequencies, which have not changed.

Against the background of criticism of "suppression of independent press media" in Belarus, we would like to emphasize that in the United States itself the practice of use of sanctions by the authorities against journalists "incorrectly" covering military operations in Iraq has been expanding. Let's name just a few such facts that received publicity in 2005: leadership of "The Los Angeles Times" fired photographer Brian Walski for his report; TV Company "NBC" canceled the contract with journalist Peter Arnett for his negative assessment of the US tactics in Iraq; the Pentagon expelled from the battle area the Christian Science Monitor's correspondent Philip Smucker who was accused of breach of rules covering military operations. And this is only ainsignificant part of examples.

Functioning of education system of Belarus is presented by authors in so much false color that there is no doubt in their wish to discredit efforts by the Government in this field at the most. Thesis about expulsion of students from institutes of higher education for their political activities seems absolutely unsubstantiated. The Ministry of Education could not distribute such directives since the current legislation allows applying administrative measures with respect to students only in case of violation by them of house rules. The students, mentioned in the report were sent down exclusively for systematic violation of education discipline. Being governed by the provisions of the Convention of the Rights of the Child, the Law on the rights of the child, the Ministry of Education has directed leadership of educational institutions at increasing explanatory activities among young students, especially among minors, to prevent them from participating in unlawful actions. Such actions not only divert youth from studies, but also provoke the violation of public order, jeopardize personal security of their participants and people.

The report, referring to the Decree of the President of Belarus No. 3 dated March 9, 2005, categorically states about alleged imposition of new restrictions on travel abroad for Belarusian students. In this connection, it is necessary to clarify that the Decree envisages the control by the Ministry of Education of sending students to study abroad in order to counter trafficking in persons and eliminate cases of the removal of citizens of Belarus abroad in the guise of study or employment. The invitation letter of a foreign educational institution with explanations of all modalities of study process is a basis for issuing by a higher educational institution of the permission for a student to study abroad. No cases of refusal from issuing such permissions under observance of the mentioned conditions were registered in 2005. More than 3 thousands Belarusian students traveled abroad for study in 2005, which corresponds to an average annual number. Analysis of this innovation proves the development of students' responsibility for results of study abroad and the substantial increase of its effectiveness.

Statement about the prohibition for some groups of children to travel abroad for respite also misrepresents the facts. 50,500 Belarusian schoolchildren traveled abroad for this purpose in 2005 that corresponds to an average annual number. At the same time, the decrease in results of study of schoolchildren who traveled abroad for respite during the school year forced the Ministry of Education to make a decision on acceptability of such travels during the school year for elementary schoolchildren only. It is explained by an insignificant study load for elementary schoolchildren and by the possibility to organize study process by one teacher who travels together with children for respite. In order to provide continuity of study process, the period of travel abroad for respite for senior schoolchildren was limited to 15 study days during the school year. Travel abroad for all categories of schoolchildren during vacations is not limited. Thus, regulating of the Belarusian children' travel abroad for respite is aimed at protecting their rights to obtain quality education.

In conclusion it is necessary to note that all branches of power of the Republic of Belarus place the focus of their attention on issues of protection of fundamental rights and freedoms of a person. The preparation of the present commentary on the US State Department’s 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices is evidence of openness and transparency of efforts by state bodies of Belarus in this field, is the important instrument in promoting objective information about human right practices in Belarus preventing its arbitrary interpretation and intentional misrepresentation.

The Belarusian side expresses its readiness to constructive dialog with the United States on the whole spectrum of human rights issues and believes that such dialog should based on principals of "common standard for all", objectivity and trust. Only in this case exchange of information and assessments will be valuable and efficient for the both parties.

We call the American side to a more responsible and careful study of the relevant information by the Belarusian state bodies during the preparation of next reports about human rights practices in Belarus.