33 Countries Propose to Condemn Belarus for Human Rights Violations

12.11.2007. Tags: international organizations, political persecution, human rights defenders.

33 countries have introduced to the UN a draft resolution on Belarus.

The document authors express their ‘deep concern with the Belarus’ non-abidance by the general process norms, continuous use of criminal persecution and arbitrary detentions with the aim to silence the political opposition and human rights activists, closed trials over the leading representatives of the opposition and human rights defenders’.

The draft resolution points at ‘further erosion of the democratic process’ and states that the local election 2007 in Belarus was held with intimidation of the opposition and pressurization of independent mass media.

The project authors including the US, the EU and Japan, reminded the official Minsk about the forced kidnap of a journalist and three political opponents of the Belarusian president Aliaksandr Lukashenka.

Belarus is also accused of closure of NGOs, associations of national minorities, independent mass media, religious communities, oppositional political parties, independent trade unions and student organizations. The European Humanities University is enlisted among the persecuted organizations.

Last year the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution condemning Belarus for violation of the democratic liberties. Russia was among those who voted nay.