Belarus resolution squeezes through UN human rights commission :: Charter'97 :: News

A resolution denouncing Belarus for human rights abuse narrowly outpolled at the United Nations human rights commission yesterday. The resolution expresses profound concern with Belarusian senior government officials involved in coercive disappearance and/or execution with no proper judicial proceedings of three political opponents of the present regime, in 1999, and a journalist, 2000. The resolution insistently calls the Belarusian government to dismiss or remove those functionaries from office, and launch an independent and exhaustive investigation of those and similar cases. Also alarming the commission is Belarusian election organization and actual polls, arbitrary detentions and arrests, and NGOs, independent media outlets and political parties in opposition victimized and suppressed.

Offered by the USA and the European Union, it scored 23 "yes" votes against 16 no`s, with 17 abstainers. The commission has a total 53 member countries.

Russia came against the resolution and proposed to vote its withdrawal from the agenda. China and Cuba offered support. The proposal was buried with 22 "yes" votes against 23 "no", seven abstaining.

"This is the commission`s bad day. It wasn`t to regard the resolution at all. We can only regret our initiative was torpedoed to deal a hard blow on the commission`s good name," Leonid Skotnikov, Russia`s permanent representative at the UN Geneva office, said to RIA Novosti.

Russia was unpleasantly surprised to see Ukraine voting for the resolution, he added.