Margaret Sekaggya, the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, has expressed concern about the persecution of Pavel Levinaw, a member of the Belarusian Helsinki Committee (BHC) who was put in jail for ten days on July 16.

This is the special rapporteur's second letter to the Belarusian authorities over Levinaw's case, the first one was released on April 8, said the BHC. Then, the human rights activist went on a hunger strike to protest his arrest during a KGB raid on a journalist's apartment in Vitsyebsk.