2023-07-05 04:33:00
The UN warns once again about human rights in Belarus. “The situation remains catastrophic. Unfortunately, it keeps getting worse,” the UN special rapporteur for the country said on Tuesday.
The regime of Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko is deliberately purging civil society of its last dissenting voices, alerted Anaïs Marin at the United Nations Human Rights Council. According to her, “the lack of accountability for human rights violations fuels a climate of fear among victims and their families”.
An alert two years ago on the “totalitarian turn”
In office for five years, Anaïs Marin reminded the Council that she had alerted it two years ago to the “totalitarian turn” taken by Minsk, attested by the “contempt for human life and dignity” during the repression of peaceful demonstrators in 2020. In its annual report, it indicates that more than 1,500 people were still detained for political reasons, with a daily average of 17 arbitrary arrests since 2020.
“I have good reason to believe that the conditions of detention are deliberately made harsher for those convicted for political reasons, by placing them in disciplinary cells for minor breaches of the prison rules,” said the rapporteur. special.
Human rights defenders face constant persecution, she added, and more than 1,600 “undesirable organizations have been forcibly dissolved, including all remaining independent trade unions”. “This illustrates a deliberate state policy aimed at purging civic space of its last dissenting elements,” she continued.
Minsk plays the empty chair policy
Anaïs Marin also claimed that the independent media had been labeled “extremist organizations”, while academic freedom was “systematically attacked”. “Ideological control and disciplinary measures restrict freedom of opinion and expression,” she denounced. Primary and secondary education is also subject to “ideological control”, with children being “discouraged from expressing their own opinions” and subject to “threats and consequences” for dissenting opinions.
Belarus was immediately offered the floor at the Human Rights Council to respond, but no representative was present.
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