Mr. President,
We thank the Special Rapporteur for her report, and for her tireless work to address the human rights situation in Belarus over the past six years.
We share her assessment that the situation in Belarus has continued to deteriorate over the past year, as the ongoing crackdown has only intensified. Just two weeks ago, prominent rights defender Nasta Loika was sentenced to seven years in prison in reprisal for her work. During her administrative and pretrial detention, authorities subjected Loika to smear campaigns, torture, and other forms of inhuman treatment.
At the same time, political prisoners are increasingly being held in incommunicado detention, kept in solitary confinement, and banned from communications with the outside world, including with their family and lawyers. Some of them, including Maria Kalesnikava and Viktar Babaryka, are reportedly experiencing serious health problems while being denied the proper medical care. This despicable practice is used to punish and assert psychological pressure on political prisoners and their families and send a chilling signal to all who advocate on their behalf.
The government tries to obscure the political motivation behind prosecutions, including by bringing bogus charges against them for “economic” crimes, holding their trials behind closed doors and bullying their lawyers into silence via politically motivated harassment and disbarments.
In this environment, the mandate of the Special Rapporteur remains critical, to ensure these violations are documented and exposed to the international community.
Mr. President,
Like the Special Rapporteur, we share the OHCHR’s concerns that grave human rights violations committed since 2020 in Belarus may amount to crimes against humanity and require a robust response from the international community.
We want to ask the Special Rapporteur what more the international community can do to support and protect victims and survivors of violations of international law, and advance accountability?
