EU Special Representative for Human Rights Stavros Lambrinidis will visit Minsk on March 9 and 10. He will take part in the intentional conference dedicated to the problem of the death penalty, BelaPAN reports. Lambrinidis will also conduct a number of other meetings but the schedule has not been confirmed yet.
The international conference dedicated to the problem of the death penalty has been organized by the UN representative office with the financial assistance of the British Embassy. Experts from a number of countries have been invited to it.
406 death sentences have been pronounced since the declaration of Belarus’ independence. The last two sentences were pronounced in the first two months of 2016. One of them was pronounced on February 15, the day when the EU lifted sanctions from Belarus. It happened regardless of the fact that the Council of the EU mentioned the necessity of imposing a moratorium on the death penalty in its decision concerning the sanctions.
Belarus is not a member of the Council of Europe because of practicing capital punishment.