“The poor Human Right situation in Belarus had deteriorated in 2005 – the democracy principles, supremacy of law, Human Rights, among them, freedom of expression,  freedom of association, mass media and priority of peaceful assemblies were violated”-  it says in Adrian Severin’s report- Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Belarus.(02-OCT-06)
based on www.naviny.by ; www.ohchr.org

President and Belarusian authorities like to repeat that Belarus is the rule-of-law state with no Human Rights violations. They call European countries and USA to direct their attention to the existing problems in this field in their ‘so called’ democratic states.
There is a contrary opinion unendorsed by Belarusian government.

Elements defining a dictatorship could be seen …
Adrian Severin, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Belarus presents the report every year since 2004. This year it was noticed that “the human rights situation in the country had constantly deteriorated to such an extent that the elements usually defining a dictatorship could be seen. Civil and political rights were limited, cultural rights were ignored, and economic and other rights were enhanced to reward for obedience”

During the first half of 2006, not less than 11 communications had been set to the Government, which raised serious concerns regarding human rights defenders, freedom of expression, arbitrary detention, religious intolerance, independence of justice, and torture. Only one response had been received, and this stated basically only an abstract readiness of the Government to cooperate with the thematic procedures.
The Special Rapporteur’s opinions and assessments had been fully confirmed by the OSCE, the Secretary-General of the Council of Europe, the European Council and Parliament, and others.

Official Belarus criticizes…
Belarus permanent representative to the International organizations Sergei Aleinik has accused Adrian Severin in misrepresentation of the facts concerned Belarus. And called the content of the report “a clear attempt to stigmatise and slander Belarus”
Belarus wondered how the mandate of the Special Rapporteur had become possible.
Belarusian delegation position was upheld by Indonesia, Pakistan, the Russian Federation, Algeria, Ghana,  Syria, Malaysia, Syria, the People´s Republic of China, Bangladesh, Morocco,Tunisia and Cuba representatives.

It should be noted that the Government had refused any cooperation with the country Rapporteur and this was not in coherence with the United Nations Charter. All recommendations addressed to the Belarusian Government in 2005 had been ignored.