Charter'97 (; ) is a declaration calling for democracy in
Belarus
Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Belarus spans an a ...
and a pro-
human rights
Human rights are universally recognized Morality, moral principles or Social norm, norms that establish standards of human behavior and are often protected by both Municipal law, national and international laws. These rights are considered ...
online news outlet taking its inspiration from the declaration.
Charter
The Charter'97 declaration deliberately echoes the
Czechoslovak human rights declaration
Charter 77
Charter 77 (''Charta 77'' in Czech language, Czech and Slovak language, Slovak) was an informal civic initiative in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic from 1976 to 1992, named after the document Charter 77 from January 1977. Founding members ...
made 20 years before. It was created on the anniversary of a
referendum held in 1996 and declared:
"devotion to the principles of independence, freedom and democracy, respect to the human rights, solidarity with everybody, who stands for elimination of dictatorial regime and restoration of democracy in Belarus".
Free Online News Site
History
Belarusian journalist
Pavał Šaramiet acted as the group's spokesman at the declaration's public launch.
Charter'97, as a citizens' human rights organisation based on the principles outlined in this document, is a non-partisan organisation which has organised protest rallies and has provided a springboard for other democratic movements in the country. It also maintains a website of news with a focus on human rights developments. The site's editor-in-chief,
Natallia Radzina, received the 2011
International Press Freedom Award, "an annual recognition of courageous journalism", for her work.
On 3 September 2010, the body of the founder of Charter'97,
Aleh Biabienin, was found in his house near
Minsk
Minsk (, ; , ) is the capital and largest city of Belarus, located on the Svislach (Berezina), Svislach and the now subterranean Nyamiha, Niamiha rivers. As the capital, Minsk has a special administrative status in Belarus and is the administra ...
. According to initial statements by the Belarusian government, Biabienin committed suicide by hanging himself. However, friends of Biabienin have rejected this, stating that there was no indication he was planning to commit suicide, and that there were no messages or notes left behind.
In the weeks following the disputed
December 2010 presidential election – in which pro-democracy candidate
Andrej Sańnikaŭ lost to Lukashenko, often called "Europe's last dictator" – a number of
opposition protesters took to the streets, alleging fraud. Radzina and the ''Charter'97'' staff posted numerous articles documenting arrests and injuries to the protesters by state security forces.
On 21 December 2010, the ''Charter'97'' office was raided by agents of the
State Security Committee of the Republic of Belarus (known in Russian as the "KGB"). Radzina only had time to post "We're all at the KGB" on the site before being arrested and taken away.
On 30 December 2011, ''Charter'97'' fell victim to a hacking attack that deleted archives and posted false news articles to the site; it also suffered a
denial of service
In computing, a denial-of-service attack (DoS attack) is a cyberattack in which the perpetrator seeks to make a machine or network resource unavailable to its intended users by temporarily or indefinitely disrupting services of a host co ...
attack.
In 2020, the logo was changed to display "Charter'97%", referencing the fact that according to opposition groups, internet polling shows that support for
President Lukashenko is low enough to be a
statistical error
In statistics and optimization, errors and residuals are two closely related and easily confused measures of the deviation of an observed value of an element of a statistical sample from its "true value" (not necessarily observable). The erro ...
, or around 3%. The phrase "97%" had become a rallying symbol of the opposition.
In August 2022, the Belarusian authorities recognized Charter’97 as an extremist group. Earlier in 2021-2022, the Telegram channel, logo, website and pages of the Charter on social networks were included in the list of extremist materials.
On July 31, 2023, the
European Parliament
The European Parliament (EP) is one of the two legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and informally as the Council of Ministers), it ...
passed a resolution in which it asks the European Commission and the Member States, to strengthen Belarusian media outlets, such as Charter 97.
See also
Telegram*
Belarusian democracy movement
*
Charter 77
Charter 77 (''Charta 77'' in Czech language, Czech and Slovak language, Slovak) was an informal civic initiative in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic from 1976 to 1992, named after the document Charter 77 from January 1977. Founding members ...
(Czechoslovakia)
*
Charter 08 (China)
References
External links
Charter'97 websiteTelegram channel
*
{{Authority control
Belarusian opposition
Belarusian news websites
Politics of Belarus
1997 in Belarus
1997 documents
Political charters