A/HRC/32/48 buried in unmarked graves.16 This practice is maintained despite the numerous recommendations made by United Nations bodies and peer procedures over many years. 99. Since the previous report of the Special Rapporteur to the Human Rights Council, three sentences to death penalty have been announced. On 20 November 2015, Ivan Kulesh was sentenced by the Hrodna regional court. The sentence was confirmed by the Supreme Court on 29 March 2016. On 5 January 2016, Henadz Yakavistki was sentenced by the Minsk regional court. On 16 February, Sergei Khmelevsky was sentenced by the Minsk regional court. 100. The Government has continued its policy of disregarding deliberations pending before the Human Rights Committee and proceeding with executions. On 6 November 2015, the Human Rights Committee concluded that the execution of Pavel Selyun on 17 April 2014, despite a request for interim measures of protection, was a violation of article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights owing to the use of torture, and article 6 of the Covenant owing to the denial of the person’s right to life (CCPR/C/115/D/2289/2013, communication No. 2289/2013). 101. The recommendations made at the second universal periodic review on the ratification of the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (A/HRC/30/3, paras. 130.1 to 130.9) did not enjoy the support of the Government of Belarus; the Special Rapporteur maintains serious doubts on the professed goodwill of the authorities to put an end to the practice described above. Furthermore, the parliamentary working group on the death penalty, the establishment of which in 2012 had been viewed as a positive development by the Special Rapporteur, has yet to issue any constructive conclusions. 102. The State has made no progress on recommendations it supported, such as on conducting public campaigns to explain arguments in favour of the abolition of the death penalty, with the aim of ratifying the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (A/HRC/30/3, para. 127.1), nor on examining recommendations with regard to the establishment of a moratorium on the death penalty (ibid., paras. 129.31 to 129.49). 103. In the highly centralized decision-making system of Belarus, the absence of any progress on the issue of death penalty, such as the commutation of the death sentence to a life sentence or the imposition of a practical moratorium on executions, can be explained as primarily a lack of political will of the authorities of Belarus. I. Electoral system 104. The presidential election of 11 October 2015 was monitored by an election observation mission of the OCSE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, which issued its report on 28 January 2016.17 In its report, the mission referred to a number of administrative improvements and certain goodwill gestures by the authorities to engage. It noted the absence of violence against opposition rallies that had marred the 2010 election, although it underlined the overall lack of progress, especially in the crucial domains of media rights, the verifiability of voter turnout, the transparency of vote counting and the inclusiveness of election committees. 16 17 Civil Rights Defenders, “Human Rights in Belarus”, 7 July 2015. OSCE, “Belarus, Presidential Elections”, 28 January 2016 (see footnote 1). 17