charter 97 is a declaration calling for democracy in belarus and a human rights group taking its inspiration from the declaration. the document – whose title deliberately echoes the czechoslovak human rights declaration charter 77 twenty years earlier – was created on the anniversary of a referendum held in 1996, and which, in the words of the organisation of the same name, declares: "devotion to the principles of independence, freedom and democracy, respect to the human rights, solidarity with everybody, who stands for elimination of dictatorial regime and restoration of democracy in belarus."