HRC50: Item 4 – Interactive Dialogue with the Special Rapporteur – Belarus
HRHF video statement
28 June 2022
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Thank you.
The Special Rapporteur highlights that Belarus’s constitutional reforms not only fail to resolve serious human rights issues, but in many respects, compound Belarus’s human rights crisis.
Earlier this month, the ILO’s Committee on the Application of Standards produced a strong ruling on Belarus, and we recommend reading its report alongside the Special Rapporteur’s.
Belarus was also prominently featured in the Secretary General’s last report on reprisals, including its actions against the Human Rights Center Viasna. Viasna’s board members Valiantsin Stefanovic and Ales Bialiatski have both addressed this Council in recent years, and now both currently languish in extended pre-trial detention in Belarus facing multi-year prison sentences, amongst many others.
In addition the government has liquidated hundreds of civil society organisations, including all independent human rights organisations.
Belarusian civil society sees the role of the Special Rapporteur as a critical lifeline to the Human Rights Council and the wider international community, ensuring that we continue to hear from them in the midst of Belarus’s human rights crisis.
We therefore call on this Council to renew the Special Rapporteur’s mandate, and ensure the Rapporteur’s work is sufficiently resourced and funded.
President.
We ask the Special Rapporteur what more we should be doing to support Belarusians who have been forced to flee their country as a result of the human rights crisis?
Thank you.
