DEMONSTRATION at the BELARUS CONSULATE in NEW YORK CITY
708 3d Avenue (at 44 Streeet)
on Wednesday, April 2 at 11 AM
PROMINENT US ANTI-CORRUPTION LAWYER HOSTAGE IN BELARUSIAN KGB JAIL
On March 12, 2008, Emanuel Zeltser, an American national and prominent New York lawyer and human rights activist, was arrested by the Belarusian KGB at the airport in Minsk, Belarus immediately upon exiting his flight from London. He has since been kept in an unidentified KGB detention facility without a formal charge. According to reports, Mr. Zeltser has been brutally beaten, including severe and direct blows to the head during his imprisonment. He has also been denied medicine critical to his health despite a detailed medical report from Mr. Zeltser’s physician delivered to the Belarusian authorities stating that Mr. Zeltser may not survive without the medications indicated. Mr. Zeltser was visiting Belarus for the first time representing his clients.
Mr. Zeltser’s arrest was confirmed on March 15, 2008, by the US Embassy in Belarus. Additionally, the four official protests requesting access to Mr. Zeltser by the US Embassy and the US State Department, pursuant to Articles 5 and 36 of the Vienna Convention, have been denied by the Belarusian government. Mr. Zeltser went on a 7 day hunger strike demanding a meeting with a US representative; however, to this day the requests for any meeting between Mr. Zeltser and a representative of the US Embassy have been denied.
Mr. Zeltser is well-known in the US and abroad for being a long time opponent of money laundering and organized crime in Russia and former Soviet republics. He is Director of the American Russian Law Institute known for its vociferous stance against international money laundering. In 1999, at the invitation of the US Congress, Mr. Zeltser testified before the House Committee on Banking and Financial Services at the Hearing on Russian organized crime and money laundering. Mr. Zeltser regularly appears as a legal expert in the media including Fox News Channel, CNN, ABC-TV (Australia), The Voice of America, Radio Liberty/Radio Free Europe, CBC (Canada) and others, addressing many legal and political issues including international terrorism, money laundering and organized crime.
His unlawful imprisonment has been covered by The New York Times, International Herald Tribune, Forbes Magazine, Associated Press, U.S. News MSNBC Wire Services, among others.