The Council of Europe is trying to advance discussion of abolition of the death penalty in Belarus, in cooperation with the authorities, through an exchange betweenrepresentatives of the traditional religious confessions in Belarus,national institutions, and civil society. Discussion on 21 June in Minsk will be enhanced with contributions from international experts Vladimir Lukin, Russia's Human Rights Ombudsman, Alvaro Gil-Robles, former Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, and Hanne Sophie Greve, former Judge at theEuropean Court of Human Rights, and from Parliamentary Assembly delegate Thierry Mariani (France).

The Committee of Ministers has stated that its strategic objective remains the integration of Belarus into the Council of Europe on the basis of the Organisation's values and principles, pursuant to the Declaration of the May 2005 Warsaw Summit, and shares the Assembly's view that an immediate moratorium on the use of, and the subsequent action towards abolition de jure of, the death penalty remain a fundamental prerequisite for greater co-operation with the Council of Europe (see CM/AS(2012)Rec1992 final)

See also:
Metropolitan Filaret: "We, as Christians, cannot justify the death penalty" [ru]