Belarusian authorities make oral statement on Bialiatski's case at UN Human Rights Council
On 5 March the discussion of the yearly report of the
Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders took place at the
UN Human Rights Council.
Representatives of Belarus made an oral statement concerning the case of the
imprisoned human rights defender Ales Bialiatski: "We attentively studied
the report of the special rapporteur on situation of human rights defenders and
regret to state that she was unable to discriminate in the case of Ales
Bialiatski, most probably yielding to the stereotype opinion, spread by certain
European structures and human rights NGOs.
We would like to once more confirm to the special rapporteur that the court
verdict has no relation to human rights activities of Bialiatski and is
connected solely to violations of the tax legislation by him. Citizen
Bialiatski didn't declare the large sums of money which he received from
sources outside Belarus, which a a gross violation of the present tax
legislation..."
Representatives of many European countries reacted to this statement by
expressing a high respect for human rights activities of Ales. A representative
of Hungary even compared him to the Czech politician and civil activist Vaclav
Gavel.
