On 30 June, the state-members of the U.N. Human Rights Council will vote on whether or not to renew the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Belarus. In this regard, FIDH has launched a campaign to urge the Member States that are still hesitating to support the renewal of the mandate. As part of this campaign, FIDH has published an “intercepted” Facebook conversation between the President of Belarus Aliaksandr Lukashenka and several heads of the states, who have not yet decided on their position on the upcoming vote.
This video links to the Web page Act4Belarus.org that was created specially for this occasion. The Web page of the campaign is available in French, English and Russian languages. It allows users to go directly to Twitter and address the leaders of countries that have not yet made the decision on their position (United Kingdom, Ecuador, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria, Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, and others) to persuade them to vote for the renewal of the mandate of the Special rapporteur on Belarus.
“Despite some cosmetic measures, the nature of the regime in power for almost 22 years has not changed. The Belarusian civil society is still under the pressure. We are being watched and become victims of provocations,” says Ales Bialiatski, FIDH vice-president and chairman of the Human Rights Center “Viasna”, who spent nearly three years in Belarusian prisons over his human rights work. “The UN Special Rapporteur is the only international mechanism for monitoring and reporting on the human rights situation in the country. His mandate should be extended.”
The systemic nature of human rights violations in Belarus is confirmed by video testimonies by a number of key Belarusian human rights defenders, including Alena Tankachova (Legal Transformation Center Lawtrend), Andrei Bastunets (Belarusian Association of Journalists), Raisa Mikhailouskaya (Belarusian Documentation Center), Valiantsin Stefanovich (Human Rights Center “Viasna”), and Natallia Mankouskaya (Human Rights Center “Identity”). In a series of exclusive interviews published on the website Act4Belarus.org, they talk about alarming facts and systematic violations of various rights: freedom of the press and freedom of expression, freedom of association, the rights of LGBT persons, as well as the death penalty, political prisoners, and others.
The UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Belarus, Miklós Haraszti, in the interview for Act4Belarus.org site said the following:
“To be specific, this is the only country in Europe with the death penalty (…), the only country in Europe where 70% of the economy belongs to the State under the command of the President. For 20 years now, there has been no opposition in Parliament”.
The human rights defenders ask Twitter and Facebook users to urge the leaders of their own and other countries to vote for the extension of the mandate of the UN special rapporteur for Belarus!
The UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Belarus, whose mandate was created in 2012, has the following competences:
– monitor the situation of human rights in Belarus and to make recommendations for its improvement;
– help to implement the recommendations contained in the report of the High Commissioner (A/HRC/20/8) to the Human Rights Council in June 2012;
– assist the Government of Belarus in fulfilling its human rights obligations; to offer support and advice to civil society;
– seek, receive, examine and act on information from all relevant stakeholders pertaining to the situation of human rights in Belarus;
– report annually to the Human Rights Council and to the General Assembly.
120 fines – 55 salaries for policemen
Meanwhile, 3 June marks 100 days since the EU abandoned its sanctions against Belarus. The analysis by human rights organisation „Libereco – Partnership for Human Rights“, on the basis of the monitoring of Belarusian organisation „Viasna“, shows that the repressions have become less visible, but in some aspects the pressure on civil society has increased.
On 15 February 2016, the EU Foreign Affairs Council suggested lifting the sanctions against Belarus. Ten days later, the Council of the European Union inaugurated the proposal. This is a benchmark in the EU´s political rehabilitation of Belarus, which has been ongoing since mid-2014. In face of the crisis in Ukraine and the deteriorating relationship with Russia, Belarus is welcomed as a supposed stable partner on the EU’s Eastern border. Nevertheless, the sanctions were originally introduced not out of considerations of international diplomacy, but to motivate Belarus to improve rule of law and reduce human rights violations.
Libereco’s analysis of the 100 days following the abandonment of the sanctions evidences striking results. The situation of human rights has not improved and in several respects they have actually deteriorated compared to 2015. Punishments and harassments have been kept beneath a level which would attract international attention.
The number of death sentences increased
The study period gives a particularly shocking image regarding the use of the death penalty. As the last country upholding capital punishment in Europe, Belarus does not appear to be decreasing its use of the death penalty. In the 100 days since the end of sanctions the amount of death sentences and executions exceeded those taking place in the whole year of 2015.
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