International Human Rights Activists: Belarusian Authorities Continue To Violate All Standards

FIDH and Human Rights Watch are calling to extend the mandate of the special rapporteur on Belarus.

Delegations to the UN Human Rights Council should support the extension of the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on Belarus, the joint letter of the Human Rights Watch Foundation, the American organization Human Rights Watch and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) says, the HRC Viasna informs.

"The Human Rights Council will consider the situation of human rights in Belarus at the 38th session of June 2006. Since the establishment of the mandate of the Special Rapporteur in 2012, there has been no systematic improvement in the situation of human rights in Belarus.

On the contrary, all legislative and systemic restrictions on freedom of expressing opinions and associations remain, and violations of civil and political rights are accompanied by an attack on economic and social rights," – the letter says.

The most frequent violations include regular harassment of participants in peaceful protests, repressive amendments to media laws, harassment of human rights defenders and lawyers. Another issue of concern is the death penalty. The Belarusian government "has not shown a real willingness to cooperate with international human rights mechanisms and continues to punish people with death in violation of international standards."

The international human rights organizations emphasize:

"Since Belarus is not a member of the Council of Europe and, despite the fact that Belarus refused to cooperate with the Special Rapporteur, his mandate remains the only independent international mechanism for the effective monitoring of human rights violations in Belarus, therefore the issue of extending the mandate of the Special Rapporteur still remains crucial."

We remind that the report of the UN Special Rapporteur on Belarus, Miklós Haraszti, will be submitted to the Council on June 25.

The expert criticizes Belarus for the lack of progress in many areas of public and political life related to human rights in it.

"Since the Human Rights Council established the mandate of the special rapporteur, the life in Belarus has been regulated by a repressive legal base, which was exacerbated by repressions and violence against peaceful demonstrators, non-governmental organizations, political opponents, human rights defenders and independent media workers, which have been regularly repeated and centrally planned," – Haraszti summarizes in his report.

The mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Belarus was introduced by the UN Human Rights Council in 2012 in connection with the massive repression in the country after the 2010 presidential elections. The Government of Belarus does not recognize the mandate of the special rapporteur and refuses to cooperate with him.