Leanid Sudalenka
Leonid Sudalenko Testimony
We face the criminalisation of our activities on the part of the state and we are subjected to systematic harassment and intimidation, arbitrary detentions, torture and degrading treatment and limitations on our movements.
Leanid Sudalenka is a prominent human rights defender, lawyer, and heads the Gomel branch of the Human Rights Centre Viasna (HRC Viasna). He is also an active campaigner and advocate for the abolition of the death penalty in Belarus. Leanid Sudalenka is laureate of the 2018 ‘Liberty, Equality, Fraternity’ Human Rights Prize of the French Republic. The Gomel branch of the HRC Viasna provides legal support to victims of human rights violations and helps them to prepare individual complaints to the United Nations Human Rights Committee.
After the wave of violence that followed the presidential election of December 2010, the human rights situation in Belarus deteriorated rapidly and remains poor after the crackdown. HRDs are subjected to intimidation and harassment, including judicial harassment, restrictions on freedom of expression, association and assembly, movement, arbitrary detention and ill-treatment.
