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Focus: Human Rights |
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The current government perceives private education as a threat to its control and influence over the education of students, particularly on politically sensitive subjects such as history and law. The development of private education emerged in Belarus as one of many consequences of the breakup of the Soviet Union. The new institutions included private, commercially-run universities, smaller operations providing night or weekend classes for adults and young people, and organizations running civic education programs . While the quality of education offered by some of these institutions has been called into question, others are recognized for the high standard of education they provide. Regrettably, these private universities and related initiatives have been the target of blanket harassment and obstruction. Government actions range from threats to introduce a new type of diploma for graduates of non-state universities, a move that critics believe is designed to deter students from attending private universities, to the uniform denial by local authorities of access to premises by smaller private schools. Senior staff members of non-state universities that a Human Rights Watch researcher spoke to claimed that government inspections and checks of their facilities routinely went beyond that which would be necessary to control the quality of education. Through such measures, the government appears to be reminding private universities and academies of their subordination to the state.
Private universities have come under fire from the government and are now largely subordinate to it.100 Private higher education institutions require a licence from the government to operate that must be renewed every five years, a requirement that is of itself unobjectionable, but which the Lukashenka administration exploits to bring these institutions to heel. Additionally, the Ministry of Education must approve the degrees and diplomas awarded by private universities, a power that critics claim has been misused. Recently, government officials have suggested that they will soon start issuing a new degree certificate to distinguish graduates of non-state institutions from graduates of state institutions, something that staff at non-state institutions claim sends a signal to their students that they will face discrimination after graduation and thus serves as a disincentive to enrollment in the private sector schools.
The president does not appoint the rectors of private institutions, yet the government applies pressure on these institutions in other ways. Staff of private universities described the licensing process as an initial obstacle to the creation of private educational establishments, and expressed fears that a system of frequent and intrusive inspections of functioning schools provides authorities with a ready made pretext for the potential closure of institutions that are politically out of line. A university lecturer observed that "multiple checks are at work. The checks come one after another, they are searching for defects in order to have a reason to strip the licence from the non-state institute of higher education."101 These pressures, according to the same source, have led some private institutions to proscribe criticism of the government:
All criticism of the current authorities is excluded by oral directives. In our institute we . . . have a request from the institute's leadership: do not criticize the current government.102
Several lecturers from non-state universities and institutes with whom a Human Rights Watch researcher spoke repeatedly expressed fears that their students and institutions would be discriminated against through the issuing of separate, non-state university degree certificates. At a meeting with Sergei Vetokhin, Vice-rector of the National Institute for Higher Education, and Valery Dobryanskii, Ministry of Education representative and Head of the ChiefAdministration of Academic and Secondary Specialized Education, Vetokhin told Human Rights Watch that the only difference between the state and non-state degree certificates would be the words "state" and "non-state." Although this difference appears innocuous, staff of non-state education institutions expressed the fear that graduates of these institutions will face discrimination in the work place, in particular from state institutions, and that prospective students will choose to study at state institutions out of fear of such discrimination. Lecturer Mikhail Pastukhov told Human Rights Watch:
The decision has practically already been made that students at non-state higher education institutes, now in their final year of study will not receive a state diploma, but of a different type. And they will not accept graduates with those diplomas in state establishments. It's as though they are becoming second class graduates and students. Naturally this kills the desire of people to get an education in a non-state institute of higher education.103
A former deputy minister of education, Tatiana Galko, who is currently working at the independent European Humanities University (EHU) in Minsk, believes that not all private universities were of a sufficiently high standard to be recognized as such and believes some were deservedly closed by the government.104 Yet she criticized the blanket measures taken against private universities in general, in particular the repeated threats to issue graduates of such institutions a different type of certificate.
Smaller scale educational initiatives are constantly harassed by local authorities who try to prevent organizers of the initiatives from holding their classes by denying them access to premises. The fact that identical measures employed by local authorities throughout Belarus suggests a central government instruction. To their credit, many of these initiatives have survived, often relying on the ingenuity of their organizers to overcome politically motivated obstacles. These obstacles range from the sublime to the ridiculous, with authorities often equating a seminar in closed premises with a public rally, thus requiring the permission of the local authorities. Human Rights Watch believes that, consistent with internationally recognized guarantees of free expression and free assembly, classes and seminars should not be banned or obstructed regardless of whether the instruction is strictly educational in nature or carries a political message.
The Belarusian Helsinki Committee gave a Human Rights Watch researcher a copy of a local government order denying the organization's request for permission to hold a seminar. The order from the Grodno City Executive Committee reads:
Decision Number 164 from February 17, 1999
On the Written Request to Hold a Meeting
Having examined the written request of Tatiana Protko, chair of the Belarusian Helsinki Committee, on the carrying out of an educational economic seminar within the framework of the project "The Right to a Decent Standard of Living" in the conference hall of the hotel "Turist" on February 25-26, 1999 and taking into account that the contents of the written request do not meet in full the demands of article 6 of the Law "On gatherings, meetings, street marches, demonstrations and pickets," the city executive committed DECIDED:
To refuse the Belarusian Helsinki Committee in the holding of the applied for activities on February 25-26, 1999.
Chair of the Executive Committee A.M. Pashkevich
Executive Committee Manager V.P. Nikolaichik105
While the Belarusian Helsinki Committee is not solely an educational organization, the above example is typical of the arbitrary obstacles put in place by local authorities that appear to be motivated by political considerations.
Belarusian Association of Women Lawyers and the Brest Association of Legal Advice Centers
Galina Drebezova is a lawyer and the president of the Belarusian Association of Women Lawyers from the southern city of Brest. Since late 1996, together with the Brest Association of Legal Advice Centers, she has organized and presented lectures on human rights in Brest and in other cities throughout Belarus. In addition to lectures for adults on human rights, Drebezova runs a Sunday school for children, teaching and training older children who then go on to teach younger children. The program she runs concentrates on teaching people about their rights as enshrined in international instruments such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as well as domestic instruments such as the Belarusian constitution.106 Drebezova described her approach to teaching about the rights under the constitution adopted following a controversial referendum in November 1996:
We take the section "The individual and society." We say to people, "this is what you voted for but it is not adhered to." We took a while to come to that, we didn't know how it would [turn out]. Concerning the 1994 constitution - we couldn't teach about that, they would just prevent us from [talking to] people. So we use the 1996 constitution and say to people, "In the referendum you voted for this, take a look at what it says. Is it adhered to?" It's not adhered to, it's violated . . . I understood that it was the best that we can do in the current situation.107
While Drebezova's human rights education program continues, local municipal authorities reportedly try to ban or disrupt its lectures. Drebezova illustrated this:
I must admit that we encounter resistance from the authorities. Quite recently we wanted to give lectures in Kamenets [Brest oblast]. We placed an announcement in the newspaper and appeared on local television announcing that we will be conducting lectures, that we have professional people working with us . . . People showed a great desire to come . . . but they banned us from having the meeting on the eve of our arrival. We should have been there January 30 and 31 [1999]. We had planned to give lectures there as we had already had an agreement with the director of a school. It's an excellent school, the children really wanted to meet us and we had planned two further meetings. We had just invited citizens of that town to the cinema - one meeting we had planned for children and the other for adults. Regretfully, all three of those meetings were canceled and we were unable to meet on January 30 and 31. The chair of the District Executive Committee, Vladimir Aleksandrovich Martsuk banned us. He said "What, you've got it into your heads to come here? We've elections now and you're planning on coming here, to campaign for somebody?" I'm afraid that our trips in the near future will be restricted.108
Although Drebezova and her colleagues have been able to lecture in other towns, obstruction from the authorities is something she encounters all too often. Drebezova stated that they have been banned so often, she can barely recall all the instances:
[We've been banned] a great many times . . . We were in Bobruisk in April 1998 where we were also banned, they wouldn't give us premises. We looked for a very long time, we went from one end to the other and in the end we hired a cafe. We had sixty people and we wandered around the city for a long time.
We had just such an occurrence in Gansavichy [Brest oblast] . . . on May 16, 1998, they also banned us from reading lectures. I held talks for a long time, however the district executive committee chair banned us, but near the city there's a collective farm and the collective farm chair gave us permission to hold the lecture there.
On February 16, 1998, in Pruzhany, it was a really interesting situation. We arrived at a school and at that moment a telegram arrived on which was written that "in connection with the epidemic, all public meetings are forbidden." Altogether it was incomprehensible. What epidemic?!109
In addition to restrictions on her lecture program, Drebezova herself has been personally targeted. In August 1998 the procurator's office brought a civil suit against her claiming that money she received for her work as a lawyer was in fact for work as an "oppositionist." On October 28, 1998, a Brest court ruled in her favor.
Rada 23 and VIT
Igor Kuzminich is the training center director of the organization VIT, a regional association of young intellectuals based in the city of Grodno which works in partnership with Rada 23, a regional council of youth organizations in Grodno region, southwest Belarus. The organizations were founded in 1995 to support young researchers in the field of human rights, history, cultural studies, sociology, and politics. The organizations are currently jointly engaged in holding seminars for young people aged between fifteen and twenty-five on civic and legal education. Rada 23 and VIT have faced delays and obstruction from the Grodno city authorities in obtaining premises, a problem, however, that was ultimately resolved in Grodno, if not in other cities. Kuzminich alleges that this was due to suspicions from the authorities that Rada 23 and VIT are an opposition political group, an allegation which he denies. Problems persist for the groups in obtaining premises for their seminars. These seminars are held mainly in Grodno region but on occasion the group travels across Belarus. Kuzminich explained to Human Rights Watch the problem:
We have only indirect pressure. Greater pressure is put on those people with whom we work, for example in the districts, when we hold seminars . . . we are within the boundaries of the law and we don't do anything illegal . . . They hamper us, for example, simply in the organization of conferences. They refuse us premises, or put us off until the last moment and then on the last day say that there are no premises and everything can simply fall through.
A year or so ago, we had a seminar in Baranovichy [Brest region]. It was in May 1998. The organizers had received permission for three different premises in the city and at the last moment they were turned down for all three. We sorted everything out [with a last minute alternative] fifteen minutes before the seminar was due to begin.
The last instance was when we held a seminar on legal education in Smargon [Grodno region] at the editorial offices of a newspaper. This is what happened: we simply didn't apply for permission because it was the editorial office of a pro-democracy newspaper, therefore we didn't need to get permission from somebody to hold the seminar. However, when we held the seminar . . . a representative from the administration came. After the seminar, over the course of two weeks, everyone who was involved in the organization of the seminar was summoned to the KGB so they knew exactly who had held the seminar, what was said, and how we were able to hold it.
We held a conference entitled "Active methods of teaching legal disciplines." What could be political in that? Someone from the city Executive Committee came and sat and recorded everything that was said and then handed in a report. That was in the beginning of November [1998].110
The People's University
During the Soviet era, pro-democracy and human rights activists in Russia and other countries of Eastern Europe, the Soviet Bloc, and Warsaw Pact countered restrictions on educational materials by engaging in underground educational initiatives. In countries of Eastern Europe, such as Czechoslovakia and Poland, these were named, "Flying Universities." These universities were essentially groups of professors who traveled across the country teaching subjects that were otherwise banned by the authorities. Tellingly, human rights and democracy activists in Belarus have come to adopt the concept in response to the authoritarian rule of President Lukashenka.
In 1995, a group of activists from the Belarusian People's Front (BPF) created a research center called "The Belarusian Perspective." The center conducts lectures and short political education seminars. However, the organizers felt that the format of short seminars was inadequate for an educational program and decided to return to an earlier format under which they had worked from 1989-1991, called "The People's University" (PU). The PU's vice-rector, Yury Khodyko, explained to Human Rights Watch the reason for the revival and the conditions under which the university worked in its first incarnation:
In the beginning, they held lectures on political education, mainly in the form of short-term seminars . . . it was worth doing while the 12th and 13th Supreme Soviets were still working; there were comparatively liberal conditions. Those lectures and seminars were held all over Belarus. Experience has shown that a single two-day seminar with around ten hours of work is not very effective, because there is not much information and it turns out to be fragmented. Therefore, in the autumn of 1997, we decided to return to the idea of the PU which we tried at the beginning of democratization. In Minsk the PU worked for three years - 1989 to 1991. Then, its true, the program was more narrow but conditions were splendid. There were no problems with premises: we rented large halls and usually several hundred people attended the lectures. Then it became harder . . . .111
The latest incarnation of the Belarusian People's University has been operating since November 1997. Since that time, the university has been teaching weekend classes on a variety of subjects, including four core subjects of economics, politics, Belarusian history, and history of Belarusian culture, along with optional courses concerning issues such as freedom of the press, human rights, trade union activity, and youth organizations. However, the university has operated in the face of a constant pattern of obstruction from local government authorities, largely through the denial of access to premises in which to hold classes. The near monopoly of state ownership of building space has facilitated this policy of state obstruction, while private landlords are easily intimidated by authorities. This in turn has led the People's University to conclude rental agreements through a third party, to use private apartments to hold classes, and to arrange alternative venues. The university's head, Valentin Golubev, described the situation:
It is very difficult for any public organization to remain in the same place for more than a year. The difficulties are with the renting of premises. Even if we pay money, even if we pay a lot of money, then those who rent us the premises are given specific terms. They are simply warned [by the authorities]: get rid of these people. [The landlords] then come to us and say "we like and respect you, it was very pleasant having you, you paid us the rent properly and on time, but we cannot fight with the authorities."112
Additionally, Golubev alleges that city authorities threaten the landlords with tax inspections, a tool of harassment familiar to independent newspapers.113
The People's University's academic secretary, Vladimir Antsulevich, clearly sees official involvement in the People's University's difficulties in obtaining premises. He told Human Rights Watch:
We always come into conflict with the same thing: we have to get the permission of the local authorities. And in every region, there is a regional authority order stating that lectures are "public meetings" [and thus subject to laws requiring prior permission of the authorities].114 We have to get such permission; otherwise not a single proprietor will allow us [to hold classes].115
The People's University's activities have attracted the attention of the president with the organization feeling an immediate effect. In a March 17, 1998 speech, President Lukashenka insinuated that the West was funding an insurrection campaign in Belarus, and pointed to the Peoples' University in particular:
I received some information very recently: Do you remember how everyone dismissed reports about $32 million being given to the opposition. But their programs in the regions are already being financed now! All those people's universities [emphasis added] have started working, and the opposition has brought in those who march in the streets to teach there. They have given themselves very decent salaries. Why do you think they shout at those opposition rallies? I have watched attentively the tape of the latest opposition rally that has been given to me. I understand perfectly well who shouts and how much they were paid to shout. Moreover, 5 million ECU - you can work out how much it is in dollars, about $7 million - was recently sent to Belarus for the sole purpose of funding the opposition - the opposition press, opposition journalists, and researchers. They select our students opposed to the Lukashenka regime, and they are willing to educate them in the West for this money. They are fleeing to Western universities to study there. This is a whole mighty program.116
Antsulevich described the immediate effect of the president's comments on the work of the Peoples' University:
Last year, in one of President Lukashenka's speeches, he said that in different cities in Belarus the People's University is springing up, in which well-known oppositionists are working. Instantly, the local authority organs reacted and we were to all intents and purposes thrown out of all the premises which we had rented.
The proprietors of the halls used any pretext to refuse to rent us the premises . . . I can only say that in almost every city something has happened. This year we had such an occurrence in Pinsk. We rented a library, but after the first day of classes they refused to rent it to us. It was clear that the ban had come from the city executive committee.117
The People's University, according to Antsulevich, has subsequently been able to secure a written rental agreement only through a third party. He explained:
In a few cities, we've succeeded in concluding a rental agreement in the name of another organization, which also by its statute has the right to undertake educational work and they work it out so that they officially invite our specialists [to give lectures]. That's how we give lectures undercover. There are difficulties, but theproblem is that we don't have any documents anywhere that show that our rights are being violated, that we have been refused something. The authorities have learned to [violate our rights] through a telephone call and oral command.118
Antsulevich said they have been forced to think up alternative arrangements in order to thwart moves by local authorities to obstruct their activities:
In some cities the matter goes as far as a complete conspiracy. For example, in Bobruisk we rent a cafe, a regular cafe, which is open in the evenings as a cafe and in the first half of the day we push the tables together and hold classes. It often happens that the cafe is busy and those days there are four alternate locations where we can hold the classes. And no one even among those attending the classes knows on each occasion where the classes will be held. People come to the cafe and then with our leaders move to the other room . . . otherwise, if we announce in advance that in such a place the lectures will be held, then we can arrive and find the place locked because the fire-service discovered some kind of fire-safety violation and closed the room. We're so used to petty meanness that we don't even pay attention to it . . . we find a solution in each city and the lectures continue.119
100 Since their inception in the post-Soviet period, private universities have experienced a number of practical difficulties. While state universities offer higher education free of charge, private universities survive through the levying of tuition fees. Following the Russian economic crisis of August 1998, reflected in an economic downturn in Belarus as well, private universities have faced economic hardship. Large numbers of students can no longer afford to study in such institutions and have turned to the state sector.
101 Name withheld. Human Rights Watch interview, Minsk, October 28, 1998.
103 Human Rights Watch interview with Mikhail Pastukhov, Minsk, October 28, 1998.
104 The four non-state universities which lost their licences to operate are: The Economic-Linguistic University, Minsk; The Humanitarian University, Brest; The European Institute of Culture, Minsk; and the East European Institute of Business and Law, Minsk.
105 Article 6 of the Law on Demonstrations reads: "Gatherings, meetings, street marches, demonstrations and pickets are forbidden if the goal of these meetings is the forced change of constitutional order or propaganda for war, or social, national, religious, or racial enmity."
106 The opposition movement disputes the legality of the 1996 amendments to the constitution.
107 Human Rights Watch interview with Galina Drebezova, Minsk, February 9, 1999.
108 Ibid. Local municipal elections took place throughout Belarus on April 4, 1999.
110 Human Rights Watch interview, Grodno, February 10, 1999.
111 Human Rights Watch interview, Minsk, February 9, 1999.
112 Human Rights Watch interview, Minsk, November 4, 1998.
113 See "Turning Back the Clock," A Human Rights Watch short report, New York, July 1998.
115 Human Rights Watch interview, Minsk, February 9, 1999.
116 Minsk Radio, Minsk, March 17, 1998, cited in World News Connection.
117 Human Rights Watch interview with Vladimir Antsulevich, Minsk, February 9, 1999.