UN experts report systematic human rights violations in Belarus
In Belarus, state institutions are coordinating their use of the justice system to suppress real or perceived critics of President Alexander Lukashenko’s government, the UN Group of Independent Experts on Human Rights in Belarus said. The findings are set out in a report that is to be presented to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva this week.
Systematic violations
As Daily Maverick reports, the experts pointed to coordinated actions by courts, police, security agencies, prosecutors and penitentiary bodies. According to them, violations of international human rights obligations are systematic in nature and occur from the moment of detention through imprisonment, conviction and monitoring of a person after their release.
The report mentions arbitrary detentions, torture, deprivation of legal safeguards, closed trials and subsequent persecution of former prisoners. The experts noted that the judicial system plays a key role in maintaining this practice by legitimizing abuses and failing to provide victims with effective legal remedies.
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Experts’ assessment and the authorities’ position
The Group of Independent Experts said that Belarus is responsible for violating several international treaties. It also reiterated its previous assessment that some violations committed since May 2020 may amount to crimes against humanity in the form of persecution and imprisonment.
Belarus has previously rejected UN criticism of its human rights situation and has not cooperated with the experts, the report says. The group’s requests to visit the country and engage with its authorities remained unanswered. Belarus’s representation to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva did not provide an immediate comment.
Mass protests in the country began after the presidential election in August 2020, which the opposition and Western governments called rigged. Thousands of people were detained after the protests were suppressed. Lukashenko denies that there are political prisoners in Belarus, calling these people “bandits,” and also denies election fraud.
