UN Special Rapporteur: Belarusian political prisoners are tortured in prison

The Human Rights Council of UN discussed the report of the UN in Belarus.

Belarus' regime is inflicting systematic human rights violations on the ex-Soviet state's population, from enforced disappearances and jailing of opponents, to torture and abuses of a string of democratic freedoms, a UN monitor said Tuesday.

"The fulfilment of human rights in Belarus, although guaranteed by the constitution, remains purposefully restricted by a governance system that is devoid of any checks and balances," Miklos Haraszti told a session of the UN's Human Rights Council.

"Violations continue to be systematically carried out through different measures: decrees, legislation, policies and practice. These are pursued to prevent and curtail all attempts by persons or groups to exercise their rights," said Haraszti, a Hungarian who serves as the UN's special rapporteur on Belarus.

Since he was appointed to his post in 2012, he said, Belarus had repeatedly failed to cooperate with his investigations and kept him out of the country.

He said that he was nonetheless able to meet with exiles, as well as people who travelled from Belarus, in neighbouring countries such as Lithuania and Ukraine.

"These meetings provided me with first-hand information on a range of human rights issues," he underlined.

"Particular concerns include the death penalty, enforced disappearances; arbitrary arrests and detentions, harassment of imprisoned political opponents and human rights defenders, conditions in detention facilities and the use of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment," he said.

He also highlighted infringements on the independence of judges and lawyers, on the rights to due process and fair trial, on freedom of expression and opinion, peaceful assembly, association, and free and fair elections.

Belarus, which became an independent state when the Soviet Union crumbled in 1991, has been ruled since 1994 by President Alexander Lukashenko, dubbed in the West as the "last dictator" in Europe.

Haraszti said Belarus had seen a "drastic deterioration" in its human rights situation since Lukashenko's December 2010 reelection, widely seen as flawed, which was marked by a crackdown on street protests by the embattled opposition.

The European Union responded with economic sanctions and issued travel bans against nearly 250 people in Belarus' government and court system.