Belarus isn’t protected for anybody vital of authorities, warns rights professional | EUROtoday

In her remaining, annual report back to the Human Rights Council in Geneva, Special Rapporteur on the rights scenario in Belarus, Anaïs Marin, echoed wider, longstanding issues from the UN and the worldwide neighborhood a few crackdown on democratic freedoms and different severe rights abuses within the nation.

President Lukashenko, 69, has been in energy since 1994 and is Europe’s longest-serving chief.

“Repression in Belarus has reached such a scale and intensity that it should not be considered a safe country for anyone who ever showed disagreement with the government or its policies. I therefore reiterate my call to refrain from extraditions and expulsions to Belarus,” stated Ms. Marin, a political scientist and French nationwide who was appointed by the Geneva-based Human Rights Council in 2018.

Democratic U-turn

“The general trend I observe is a further tightening of the screws against any real or perceived opposition to the acting government, and the systematic persecution of anyone who dares expressing dissenting views about its policies,” she informed the Human Rights Council, which is the highest UN discussion board for Member States to debate and tackle human rights conditions of concern.

In the absence of Belarus on the Council to reply to her report, the Special Rapporteur additionally famous that because the nation had entered a brand new electoral cycle, it had despatched “no signal that the next presidential election will be held differently than before”.

Extremist label

To illustrate the stress confronted by civil society in Belarus – which denied the Special Rapporteur’s requests to go to the nation, she stated – Ms. Marin famous that greater than 1,500 registered associations had “disappeared” in recent times – nearly half the quantity that existed previous to the 2020 election violence.

“This was achieved also by designating them as “extremist formations”, and subsequently prosecuting their leaders and members, pushing them to relocate overseas,” she defined.

Trades unions and extra undone

In her report masking the interval from 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024, the unbiased professional maintained that “all types of independent associations” have suffered in Belarus: civil society organisations and initiatives, political events, commerce unions, bar associations, spiritual or cultural organizations and on-line communities.

Furthermore, unbiased commerce unions in Belarus “have been dismantled” and the variety of political events has fallen from 16 to 4 within the interval main as much as the February 2024 parliamentary elections, the Special Rapporteur stated.

Exile or jail

“All those who ever dared speaking up against the government or its policies are either behind bars or in exile”, Ms. Marin stated in a separate assertion, including that dissidents in exile “continue to face harassment, being labelled as traitors or extremists, and prosecuted in absentia for alleged crimes”.

Among the legislative measures utilized by the authorities “to crackdown on free assembly and association”, the unbiased professional listed obligatory re-registration campaigns, restrictions on entry to funding and “retaliation” for donations, together with “liquidation of associations through or without judicial proceedings”, designation of undesirable associations as “extremist formations” and the “persecution of their leaders, members, volunteers and supporters”.

For these in jail, the unbiased professional highlighted “over a dozen” reported deaths in custody since 2020. These had been “most likely caused by inadequate or untimely medical care”, Ms. Marin stated, including that “a few detainees have been held incommunicado for over a year and their families are unaware of their fate”.

There have additionally been “a growing number of allegations of ill-treatment of inmates convicted on what appear to be politically motivated charges” the Special Rapporteur stated, whereas additionally pointing with concern to the harassment of minorities and members of LGBTIQ+ neighborhood and the “intimidation” of family members of “extremists” dwelling in exile.

Special Rapporteurs

Appointed by the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council and forming of part of its Special Procedures, Special Rapporteurs are mandated to observe and assess the rights scenario in sure thematic or nation conditions.

They work of their particular person capability, should not UN employees and don’t obtain a wage.