Belarus still on agenda at UN Human Rights Council
The 32th session of the UN Human Rights Council opened today in Geneva. The agenda of the meeting includes the presentation of the report of the Special Rapporteur on Belarus and a vote on the extension of his mandate.
According to the official schedule, an interactive dialogue with Miklos Haraszti, including the presentation of his report for the period until 31 March 2016, will be held on June 21. On June 30, the Council will vote on extending the Special Rapporteur’s mandate.
Representatives of the Belarusian human rights organizations believe that the lifting of EU sanctions against the official Minsk emphasize the need to continue international monitoring of the human rights situation in Belarus. Human rights defenders urge the international community to preserve the Special Rapporteur’s mandate. On the eve of the Council’s session, the Human Rights Center "Viasna", together with its partners from the Human Rights House Network and the International Federation for Human Rights, was actively campaigning for the preservation of the mandate.
“We had two trips to Geneva. We met with a number of national delegations to speak with Latin American and African countries, instead of focusing on Europe. We asked them to support the extension of the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on Belarus for several reasons. In particular, due to the fact that the Belarusian government is very selective in implementing its obligations under the UN control mechanisms. That is, in some spheres it is cooperating with the United Nations, while the spheres related to civil and political rights are often ignored. Decisions of the Human Rights Committee are not implemented at the national level, thematic Special Rapporteurs working with civil and political rights are not invited to the country, the country Rapporteur has never been invited to Belarus. We believe that in this situation the international monitoring of the human rights situation in Belarus should be continued,” said Valiantsin Stefanovich, who represented Viasna at the meetings with the national delegations of member countries of the UN Human Rights Council.
According to the human rights defender, despite the fact that since 2012 there has been a rotation of member states at the Human Rights Council, it is still very likely that the mandate of the Special Rapporteur will be extended.
The mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Belarus was introduced in 2012 after a wave of repression following the 2010 presidential election. In response, the government of Belarus said that it did not recognize the mandate of the Special Rapporteur and would not cooperate with him.
