A/HRC/38/51 recalls that Viasna Human Rights Centre was targeted by the Government through a violent raid, the arbitrary arrest and detention of a number of its members and the confiscation of material. 58. The aftermath of the March 2017 events was felt into the first quarter of 2018, despite the authorities allegedly attempting to reach out to the human rights community within Belarus, in particular with regard to the inter-agency plan on human rights. One of the lawyers working for Viasna Human Rights Centre attempted to bring a criminal case against police officials who allegedly beat him on 25 March 2017. His demand was rejected by the local department of the Investigative Committee in August 2017, a decision confirmed by the Minsk Prosecutor’s Office in March 2018. 59. A number of NGOs have reported that the Ministry for Foreign Affairs has organized meetings to discuss the implementation of the inter-agency plan on the implementation of universal periodic review recommendations, but that no such invitation has arrived from other government agencies, justifying the criticism that the plan is meant for promotion with foreign partners. Such gatherings, although perhaps acknowledging the existence of human rights defenders, do not provide them with an opportunity to engage in dialogue and discuss systemic issues. Throughout his tenure, the Special Rapporteur has highlighted the absence of any channels of communication between the Government and human rights defenders as being one of the main shortcomings regarding the human rights record of Belarus, and as being a key reason for the lack of improvement of human rights governance. The mere toleration of some human rights groups, such as Viasna Human Rights Centre, which somehow manage to operate without accreditation, is also used to pressure groups and the whole human rights movement within the country. Although the authorities did not interfere in the holding of a one-off civil society forum, which took place on 4 July 2017 on the margins of the session of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, they refused to take part in or address it. 60. Human rights defenders continue to be intimidated. For instance, on 22 October 2017, a Viasna Human Rights Centre volunteer was searched and detained for some hours as she was returning from a meeting in Vilnius. Another anti-discrimination activist based in Ukraine was banned from entering Belarus in November. In August, four anti-death penalty activists, who had been distributing leaflets in the streets of Minsk received telephone calls from the police requesting them to explain their actions. 61. The harassment of human rights defenders took a new course after the March 2017 demonstrations. A number of lawyers defending human rights activists, including members or supporters of Viasna Human Rights Centre, have been encountering hurdles in the course of their work since then, with some of them receiving threats of criminal prosecution. 20 In September 2017, the Ministry of Justice reportedly ordered the extraordinary recertification of 25 lawyers belonging to the bar associations of Minsk and Mogilev, which resulted in the revocation of the licences of two lawyers. About 60 lawyers were also awaiting regular recertification.21 The Special Rapporteur recalls that the exercise of the profession of lawyer in Belarus is strictly controlled by the authorities, who conduct “recertification” exercises every five years. 62. The Special Rapporteur welcomes the return to Belarus of prominent human rights lawyer Alena Tonkachova, a Russian national who has worked in Belarus for about 30 years and who directs the Legal Transformation Centre. She had been deported from Belarus in 2015 for three years on trumped-up charges. Her repeated calls to be permitted to re-enter Belarus during the period of her ban had been ignored by the authorities. 63. Administrative and police harassment is also directed towards trade unionists who try to defend their rights. During the last two weeks of January 2018, as many as 200 representatives of the Belarusian Radio and Electronics Workers’ Union were questioned in the context of the “Trade union case”, an allegedly fabricated tax evasion case that was 20 21 10 Ibid. See https://defendlawyers.wordpress.com/2017/09/05/belarus-human-rights-activists-alarmed-overnew-wave-of-harassment-against-lawyers/.