byi Vera Stremkovskaya
These are very well known cases, which happened in March 2008, and for which I acted as a human rights lawyer in Belarus, before my leaving for Sweden.
That was the case about the so-called "Human shield".
I was a lawyer for the victims, and we had bring the case to court against the police. That case is very important in a practice of human rights protection, because such a practice of " human shields'' has been exerted before in Belarus, but it was impossible to bring the case to court and to accuse the police. Police had done everything in its power to cover up the proofs, and to avoid the responsibility.
The biggest role in that situation was played by the media, which stressed the situation and showed to everybody what happened. After this case my professional activity and my actions as a lawyer for victims of human rights abuse, was very successful. The media had another great role: when the police heard about the case on the media, their attitude changed: they had before already tried to cover up the proofs, but they now had to open again the investigations, against its members.
That was possible only because of cooperation of civil society : journalists, human rights defender, car-drivers’ organizations. These organizations took action directly on this case, by putting stickers on car windows with the slogan “Human shield”, collecting signatures to apply to the government, to request further investigations, to punish those guilty of the practice of “Human shields”, and to stop altogether the practice in Belarus.
The case was taken to court and the police was convicted.
After we brought that case to court, other people come to me and asked me to help them in a situation, where they were involved earlier on, also as a « Human shield», but that case was not investigated before and they did not get satisfaction.
Well, we tried to pushing that case also, but was not so successful, as with the case from March 2008, because when we became involved, the police had covered up all proofs and it was impossible now to reopen the case. But that show to everybody, that practice of the « Human shields» existed in Belarus before we come to the court with our case.
Right now they have absolutely same case in Moscow, and with the same situation and same name " Human shield". Looks like history and situations coming up again and people need to be protected of that practice.
I enclose links from Internet with video about that case, in which it is possible to see all information, and my comments, as a human rights lawyer in that case.
