UN Special Rapporteur: The situation with human rights in Belarus hasn’t changed significantly
Miklós Haraszti, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Belarus
The UN Special Rapporteuron Belarus, Miklos Haraszti on October 28 presented his report on the situationin the countrywithin the framework ofthe 69thsession of theUN General Assembly.
UN Council on Human Rights appointed Miklos Haraszti a Special Rapporteur on Belarus in 2012. He noted that closely monitored the situation of human rights in Belarus, and for the last year it hasn’t changed significantly.
Harastzi noted that the activities of civil society are paralyzed by three main factors: a permissive principle of registration of associations and mass refusal of registration as well as criminal responsibility for activity on behalf of unregistered organization and its funding.
According to the Special Rapporteur, in Belarus threats and warnings are actively used in order to intimidate human rights defenders and make them stop their activities.
As positive trends Harastzi called amendments to legislation on public associations and political parties, which came into force in February 2014. And also the release of human rights defender Ales Bialiatski.
Harastzi said that he still wasn’t able to visit Belarus. He expressed hope that the Belarusian authorities would finally agree to cooperate with him.
The representative of the Belarusian Foreign Ministry during the meeting stated that "reports on the situation in Belarus are written by rapporteur under influence of Brussels" and called them "an attempt to interfere in internal affairs."
According to the representative of Belarus, till the moment of the mandate of the Special Rapporteur in 2012, Belarus has warned that his activities wouldn’t be objective and unbiased.
Panelis tfrom Russia called the report"one-sidedandpoliticallyengaged."
Speakers from Canada, Switzerland, Norway made their speeches in support of the report made by Harastzi.
