A/HRC/38/51 professional skills, and that 60 lawyers had to undergo a recertification process, testifies to the denial of the right to be defended by a lawyer in Belarus. 85. The Special Rapporteur recalls that the authorities conducted a similar recertification exercise in 2011 for legal counsels who were defending individuals accused of rioting during the period of intense repression in the wake of the December 2010 presidential election. The recent attempt to demand recertification, and to ban or threaten to ban lawyers (by issuing conditional certification), is another feature of the cyclical oppression of human rights in Belarus. 86. As during previous reporting cycles, the Special Rapporteur continued to receive examples of disproportionate sentences and fines against those who had criticized the official narrative. For instance, an activist who tried to display a banner on a statue of Lenin in the city of Lida was held for two months without trial, and subsequently sentenced to one year’s imprisonment in September 2017. 87. The Special Rapporteur notes that Belarus dropped by 11 places in the 2017 democracy index of The Economist, ranking 138th out of 167 countries. 33 88. During its consideration of the Belarus combined periodic reports in late 2017, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination expressed concerns about the extent of the powers of the President over the judiciary (see CERD/C/BLR/CO/20-23, para. 21). J. Economic and social rights and conditions of work 89. Forced labour remains the most visible violation of economic and social rights in Belarus. That practice has been denounced by the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International Labour Organization, which have made several recommendations to eliminate it. Belarus still has to address the issue, both in its legislation and its practices, notably with regard to subotniks (days of “voluntary” unpaid work) and participation in activity therapy centres. 90. The obligation, for instance, to participate in harvesting on State-owned farms or in street cleaning sessions, is regularly applied to factory workers, civil servants and schoolchildren, and is disguised as strong encouragement by the authorities. The economy of Belarus is centralized in nature, controlled by the President and his administration and largely underperforming, allowing for the above-mentioned labour violation to be praised as patriotic. Such practices are regularly monitored by the President himself, who, for instance, publicly demanded that those responsible for bringing in the harvest in Gomel oblast untimely in the second half of 2017 be punished. In November 2017, a Viasna Human Rights Centre lawyer denounced the decision of the local executive committee of Homiel to send teachers, students and employees to harvest flax: no measures were taken in that regard. Similarly, attempts to launch an investigation against those who decided to send schoolchildren to harvest potatoes in Maladziecna District in September 2016, during which time 13-year-old Viktoryia Papachenia died when hit by a truck, were rejected by the Prosecutor’s Office in December 2017. 91. The Special Rapporteur recalls that the large-scale demonstrations of February and March 2017 were directed against presidential decree No. 3 of 2015, which provided for the financial liability of any individual who had not worked for 183 days in a year. The Government estimated the number of individuals concerned at approximately 470,000. The decree in itself was a violation of economic and social rights, as it was intended to punish anyone who refused to work for the almost entirely State-driven economy, therefore increasing the unemployment rate and becoming a “social parasite” according to the government narrative. 92. Faced with heavy internal and international criticism regarding presidential decree No. 3 of 2015, the President suspended its implementation and asked the Government to 33 See https://www.eiu.com/topic/democracy-index. 15