A/HRC/26/44 E. Arbitrary arrest and detention 48. The Special Rapporteur continues to receive reports from journalists, lawyers, human right defenders and members of political organizations who claim they were detained and charged with speculative administrative offences. 49. The Special Rapporteur has collected information on more than 50 cases of people subjected to administrative arrests for participating in unauthorized mass events. Similarly, individuals have been arbitrarily arrested and detained for: collecting signatures outdoors; handing out photos of political prisoners; a film screening about the Slutsk anti-Bolshevik uprising in the village of Kazlovicky; and organizing a bike carnival in Minsk. All of these were viewed by the authorities as unauthorized mass events, with participants charged for disobedience to the lawful demands of police officers, under article 23.34 (violations of the rules on holding mass events) of the Administrative Code. 50. Reports of arbitrary detention of journalists are accounted for under freedom of expression. A typical case of arbitrary detention as a means of intimidation is the arrest of 15 participants of a demonstration in memory of Ihar Ptichkin on 14 September 2013. Among those detained was Andrei Bondarenko, the Director of the NGO Platform Innovation. While in detention, the detainees were given neither legal assistance nor information on their rights. Their relatives received no information on their whereabouts.29 They were released after nine hours. 51. Preventive detentions and the arrests of youth activists were consistently carried out by law enforcement. LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) activists are typically summoned to so-called “preventive conversations” during which they are told that the existence of LGBT communities results in increased production of pornography. Maksim Dzimtryieu, Deputy Chairman of the NGO GayBelarus, was forced to have such a “conversation” on 16 August 2013. 52. New cases were reported where individuals were detained and sentenced for participating in an unsanctioned event only after the information on the event had been posted on the Internet. For example, on 30 December 2014, Aliaksandr Ivanou was charged and sentenced under article 23.34 of the Administrative Code by Hrodna District Court to a fine for posting information on the Internet about the campaign “Stop-Tax”. Four days earlier, he had reported on Hrodenski Forum about a gathering for motorists on 27 December.30 53. A decision to detain a person continues to require sanctioning only by the prosecutor; there is still no provision for a judicial review of merit of the case. While a detainee may appeal to the court against the detention, the court may only check the legality of the procedure, not of the decision itself (A/HRC/23/52, para. 71). 54. The Special Rapporteur again recalls that the authorities of Belarus should ensure that detention may be ordered only by a judge, and that pretrial detention is used only in exceptional circumstances. 29 30 10 International Federation for Human Rights, “Belarus: arrest and sentencing of Mr. Andrei Bondarenko”, 15 November 2013 (http://www.fidh.org/en/eastern-europe-central-asia/belarus/14242belarus-arrest-and-sentencing-of-mr-andrei-bondarenko). See footnote 21 above, p. 231.