Belarus struck off UN blacklist :: Charter'97 :: News

The UN Human Rights Council has stricken off Belarus and Cuba from the blacklist of countries where the situation with human rights is alarming and needs special surveillance. Such a decision has been taken at the session of this body. Nine countries including Cambodia, China, Congo, Somalia, Sudan, Myanmar, North Korea, and the Palestinian territories have remained on the list.

The UN Human Rights Council was created in line with a decision accepted at the meeting of leaders of countries in September 2005. It replaced the commission on Human Rights which work, according to members of the world community, was too politically biased and not very efficient. The Council started its work last summer, ITAR-TASS informs.

Meanwhile the EU has decided to expel Belarus “from the Generalized System of Preferences for systematic violations of workers’ rights, the press-service of the European Commission stated. On June 15 the International Labour Organization adopted a statement that Belarus hadn’t acted to ensure the protection of certain key labor rights related to freedom of assembly in Belarus. Thus Belarus is deprived of trade preferences since June 21, 2007,” the press-release reads.