The Death Penalty in the OSCE Area–Background Paper 2019 of detention.196 In an interview with Viasna, a human rights activist stated that Belarus has declined requests for a visit from the UN Special Rapporteur on torture for over 10 years.197 Belarus has not signed the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture, which outlines international and national mechanisms for the prevention of torture in places of deprivation of liberty. Lack of transparency The difficulty in obtaining information regarding the death penalty in Belarus is due to Belarus continuing to classify data on the use of the death penalty a “state secret”.198 As stated in the ODIHR death penalty background papers for 2016 and 2017, the lack of transparency and secrecy surrounding executions in Belarus may constitute cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, or even torture.199 This secrecy affects death row inmate themselves, their relatives and lawyers, as well as the wider public. On 22 November 2018, the UN Human Rights Committee published its concluding observations and explicitly stated that when individuals on death row are not informed of their date of execution, this is a violation of Article 7 of the Covenant.200 FIDH and Viasna’s 2016 report details the psychological effect this may have on the death row inmates, who are not informed of the date of their execution and spend, on average, a year on death row awaiting their execution.201 Furthermore, the effect that this lack of transparency can have on relatives of death row inmates causes unnecessary “pain and sorrow.”202 According to the UN Human Rights Committee, the lack of information provided to relatives of death row prisoners regarding the date of execution, the body not being returned to them and the burial site not being disclosed also constitute a violation of the prohibition of torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.203 The Committee against Torture has also stated that the nondisclosure of dates of executions or places of burial to 196  Anaïs Marin, Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Belarus, op. cit., note 47, para. 28. 197  “Human rights activists present alternative report on torture”, Viasna, 7 April 2018, <http://spring96.org/ en/news/89617>. 198  Report of the Secretary-General, Question of the death penalty, U.N. Doc. A/HRC/39/19, 14 September 2018, para. 17. 199  “The Death Penalty in the OSCE Area: Background Paper 2016”, “The Death Penalty in the OSCE Area: Background Paper 2017”, op. cit., note 3. 200  Human Rights Committee, Concluding observations on the fifth periodic report of Belarus, op. cit., note 175, para. 27 b. 201  FIDH - HRC “Viasna”, “Death Penalty in Belarus: Murder on (Un)lawful Grounds”, op. cit., note 156, p. 64. 202  Miklós Haraszti, “Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Belarus,” U.N. Doc. A/73/380, 13 September 2018, para. 87. 203  General Comment No. 36, op. cit., note 10, para. 56. 40