Tens of hundreds of individuals — lots of them peaceable protesters — have been arbitrarily arrested and detained in Belarus over the previous two and a half years, UN Deputy Excessive Commissioner for Human Rights Nada Al-Nashif said Tuesday.
The feedback got here as Al-Nashif offered a report outlining human rights violations in Belarus to the UN’s Human Rights Council. The report focuses on occasions main as much as and following the 2020 Belarusian presidential election and the protests that occurred throughout that point.
The report, printed in February 2023, analyzes data collected throughout interviews with witnesses and victims. It presents proof of the illegal deaths of a minimum of 5 folks, 100 or extra circumstances of sexual and gender-based violence, pointless use of drive in opposition to people believed to oppose the federal government, assaults on unbiased media channels, and arbitrary arrests marked by unfair sentences that the Excessive Commissioner calls “politically motivated.”
The report additionally urges the revocation of a number of oppressive legislative amendments, together with one that permits the termination of citizenship of people that “participat[e] in extremist actions or caus[e] severe hurt to the pursuits of the Republic of Belarus.”Al-Nashif mentioned throughout her presentation that:
The notion of “extremism” is outlined too broadly in nationwide laws… there have been many felony circumstances in 2022 by the [Belarusian] Prosecutor Common’s Workplace primarily based on allegations of “extremism”. These amendments, which offer broad license for abusive repression and open the door to statelessness, needs to be revoked.
One other concern raised within the report is the broadened scope of the demise penalty to incorporate offenses that may not qualify underneath international standards.
In the end, the Excessive Commissioner’s workplace seeks to make use of the knowledge within the report back to problem authoritarian threats to the rule of legislation in Belarus. Al-Nashif additionally referred to as on different Member States to make use of nationwide proceedings to carry Belarus accountable for its repressive techniques. She asserted that:
Immediate, efficient, clear and unbiased investigations have to be launched into all previous human rights violations, with provision of ample treatments, together with due accountability for perpetrators. Given the present circumstances of restricted accountability prospects in Belarus, different Member States must also think about working in direction of accountability by way of nationwide proceedings, primarily based on accepted rules of extraterritorial and common jurisdiction, in line with worldwide due course of and honest trial requirements.
The February report shouldn’t be the primary of its type. In March 2022, the Excessive Commissioner’s workplace launched its first report investigating the human rights scenario associated to the 2020 presidential election. That report documented using pointless crowd management weapons on protestors, round 5,000 complaints of ill-treatment of detainees, and trials that didn’t uphold fundamental procedural ensures. In a approach, the latest report solely expands on these earlier findings, elevating elevated concern over the systemic abuse of energy in Belarus.
Wednesday’s presentation follows a statement from Excessive Commissioner Volker Türk final week calling for the tip of human rights abuses in Belarus.
