The team of ex-presidential candidate Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya and the association of resigned law enforcement officers By_Pol launched an online platform “Unified Crime Record Book” (UCRB)
1 December 2020, 15:53 | Naviny.by
On 1 December at an online press-conference Tsikhanouskaya said that the launch of the project of UCRB was one of the steps towards realisation of an initiative “People’s Tribunal” announced two weeks ago. The aim of this initiative, she reminded, is “to stop lawlessness in our country and for people who performed crimes to receive a just punishment.”
According to the ex-presidential candidate, UCRB is “an online platform, on which every victim, witness or accomplice of a crime can upload information about a crime and provide some evidence”. “Each crime shall first be checked by lawyers and only then published,” she pointed out.
Pavel Latushka, a member of the Presidium of the Coordination Council (CC) for the settlement of the political crisis in Belarus, head of the People’s Anti-Crisis Administration (PACA), noted that the draft book “does not aim to judge or pass sentences”. “The main thing for us is to collect data on crimes and persons involved in the crimes committed,” he explained.
Thus, according to Latushka, UCRB is an “a cumulative base of committed acts and a catalyst for the destruction of the regime,” because through “witness confessions, the provision of evidence, the project will allow to find out the names of all criminals who still believe in impunity.”
Latushka pointed out that before anything the project is intended primarily for those who “committed a crime under pressure, threats, or now realized that their actions were a crime.” Those people, he said, “can confess through the website and contribute to solving the crime in order to fall under Article 63 of the Criminal Code, that is, to mitigate their punishment, and possibly to ensure release from criminal liability in the future.” Latushka stressed that this applies to both law enforcement officials and members of election commissions.
“The second group is witnesses of falsifications and law enforcement officer’s crimes,” said the head of PACA. “Such people can leave their evidence and proofs via the website in order to help restore justice in the country and thus to speed up the end of Lukashenko’s regime. The third group includes victims of law enforcement officers’ actions. These people can upload reports and proofs of the crimes committed against them to the website thereby contributing to the fact that the perpetrators are identified and will inevitably be punished.”
Latushka drew attention to the fact that the data in the UCRB will be synchronized with the already operating projects “23.34” and “August 2020” that collect information on violations of the rights of citizens of Belarus.
According to the member of the Presidium of Coordination Council, materials from UCRB may be used to put people involved in crimes to justice within the framework of universal jurisdiction, to create an international legal mechanism for criminal responsibility and to add those people to sanction lists. “In the future these materials will be used by investigative bodies, and the prosecutor’s office of the new Belarus to promote justice and deliver fair sentences by the courts,” said Latushka.
Andrei Astapovich, a former investigator, a founder and a member of By_Pol association, announced that the biggest part of the database on people suspected in various crimes will be published after 20 December. The time period was left so that the persons who committed crimes could frankly confess their actions through the website. After the publication of a list with the names of people in respect of whom there is evidence of a crime, they will no longer be able to issue a confession.
According to Astapovich, each report “will be checked by professional investigators, prosecutors, lawyers and solicitors.” These data, he added, “will be correlated with the information that is already available, has already been published in the media – video recordings and so on.”
