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UN urges Belarus to grant entry to UN rights expert

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18 Sep 2020 10:11 AM GMT
UN urges Belarus to grant entry to UN rights expert
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Belarus should grant free access to specialised UN experts to monitor human rights issues, including prisons, the UN Human Rights Council urges in a resolution. In addition to demanding entry for UN Belarus monitor Anais Marin, the Human Rights Council also calls on Belarus to stop using violence, torture and arrests to quash civil rights. The […]

Belarus should grant free access to specialised UN experts to monitor human rights issues, including prisons, the UN Human Rights Council urges in a resolution.

In addition to demanding entry for UN Belarus monitor Anais Marin, the Human Rights Council also calls on Belarus to stop using violence, torture and arrests to quash civil rights.

The resolution, which was initiated by European countries says Belarus authorities should start a dialogue with the opposition and civil society.

The resolution was adopted with 23 yes votes, two no votes from Eritrea and Venezuela, and 22 abstentions.

Similarly, Belarusian opposition leader, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, appealed to the UN on Friday for an international monitoring mission to be sent to Belarus to document an ongoing violent police crackdown on her supporters.

“The scope and the brutality of the extensive force used by the regime is in clear violation of all international norms and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the UN,” Tikhanovskaya said in an address to the UN Human Rights Council.

At least 7,000 protesters have been detained in Belarus since a disputed presidential election more than a month ago.

The UN has received 450 reports of torture and other abuse of detainees.

President Alexander Lukashenko, 66, has led Belarus, a former Soviet republic between Russia and EU member state Poland, for more than a quarter-century, tolerating little dissent.

Tikhanovskaya placed second in the Aug. 9 election, according to the disputed official tally.

She says she won and has demanded a new election. There have been protests in Belarus every day since the vote.

“We demand … an international monitoring mission to document the regime’s atrocities,” Tikhanovskaya, 38, told a special meeting of the UN council via video link.

She dismissed the Belarusian leadership’s allegations that, by seeking to intervene in Belarus’ post-election crisis, foreign powers have been meddling in the country’s internal affairs.

“It is very important to recognise that standing up for democratic principles and human rights is not interfering in internal affairs.

“It is a universal question of human dignity,” Tikhanovskaya said.

The UN Human Rights Council held the urgent debate in spite diplomats from Belarus and its close allies trying to prevent reports on violations from being presented at the meeting in Geneva.

“It is vital for the future of Belarus to break these cycles of increasing repression and violence,” Deputy UN Rights Chief Nada al-Nashif said.

“Civil society is a valuable partner, not a threat,” she added.

After al-Nashif’s speech, envoys from Belarus, Russia, Venezuela and China raised a long series of points of order to complain that the UN official had been allowed to speak, and to stop additional reports from a UN rights investigator and from Belarusian civil society representatives.

The Austrian diplomat, who presides over the Human Rights Council, Elisabeth Tichy-Fisslberger, finally issued a ruling to stop these interventions.

Belarusian Ambassador Yury Ambrazevic rejected all accusations voiced in the council, which heard video messages from the foreign ministers of Denmark, Slovakia, Poland, the Netherlands and Ukraine.

“We believe it is not acceptable to use this body here to interfere in the election in any individual country,” Ambrazevic said.

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