Human Rights Center Viasna: UN Special Rapporteur Should Stay

It would be possible to prolong the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Belarus despite the negative reaction of the Belarusian authorities.

The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) together with Belarusian human rights activists is carrying out a campaign for renewing the mandate of the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights, BelaPAN writes.

The decision on whether to renew or not the mandate is to be adopted by the UN Human Rights Council on 30 June. The position of the UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Belarus was established in July 2012, and his mandate was renewed every year, despite the negative reaction of the Belarusian authorities and their denial to cooperate with him.

In the framework of the FIDH campaign, last week a Belarusian human rights watchdog Valiantsin Stefanovich, a deputy chairman of the human rights centre Viasna, closed by the authorities, visited Geneva, where he met with representatives of delegations of a number of the UN Human Rights Council, and lobbied renewal of the mandate – both among the opponents of this idea and delegates of those countries which usually abstain from voting on the mandate (Philippines, Togo, the Republic of Maldives, Salvador, Mexico, Algeria, Indonesia, Georgia…)

As said by him, it is essential for the future of the citizens of Belarus to keep the Special Rapporteur in place, for the international monitoring to be maintained in the country.

“Our position is that there is no due cooperation on the part of Belarus with the UN treaty mechanisms. Belarus cooperates with us very selectively. It actively cooperates on the issues of women rights or human trafficking, for example, but does not want to cooperate on the issues of civil and political rights. Belarus denies cooperating on unpleasant issues. It is a very selective approach to interaction with the UN,” – Stefanovich said.

As an example he offered disinclination of the Belarusian authorities to execute decisions of the UN Human Rights Committee concerning complaints of Belarusian citizens. The official Minsk explains its position by the fact that decisions of the Committee are of an advisory nature.

Predicting a decision on the mandate, Stefanovich noted: many his colleagues from the FIDH say that it is hard to say yet how the voting would take place, but they believe it would be possible to extend the mandate.

A website Act4Belarus.org had been launched previously in support of the extension of the FIDH mandate, which in Russian, English and French offers stories about human rights, freedom of the press, freedom of association, political prisoners and death penalty in Belarus. It also contains a humorous video with a possible chat of Lukashenka and leaders of other states on Facebook.