UN Special Rapporteur Miklós Haraszti has found no improvement in human rights situation in Belarus. The report will be presented at the 32nd session of the UN Human Rights Council.
Although Haraszti considers the release of 6 political prisoners before of the 2015 presidential election a very positive signal, he is still concerned about the fact that the decision of freeing political prisoners’ was as arbitrary as that of their jailing. In addition, their civil and political rights of the former political prisoners were not restored.
The Rapporteur admits that during the 2015 election the authorities refrained from violence against political opponents and none of Lukashenka’s rivals was arrested. Nevertheless, the OSCE failed to recognize the election ‘more trustable than that of 2010’.
“Therefore, the release of political prisoners on the eve of the election without restoration of their right to be nominated as candidates, probably only worsened the atmosphere of fear in which the country is governed for several decades by now. The highly oppressive legal system has only become tougher since 2010, and, at the same time, the authorities have become more brutal in using criminal and administrative punishment systematically against the opponents and critics and all those who express disagreement, even in the most peaceful way,” Haraszti says.
“The Belarusian parliament remains the only one at the European continent with no even a resemblance of the opposition in it and limits its only function to dutifully stamping the decisions of the president. This refers to the squads of parliament of all convocations for the last 20 years, regardless of whether the opposition was trying to take part in them or boycotted the election as a protest against the restrictions,” the report reads.
There have been no other improvements in the situation which is characterized by the entrenchment of systematic violations of fundamental human rights and which gave the reason to establish a mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the human rights siruation in Belarus, the introductory note to the report states.
