(Geneva) The human rights situation in Belarus is “catastrophic” and only getting worse, the UN special rapporteur in that country said on Tuesday.
The regime of Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko in Minsk is deliberately purging civil society of its last dissenting voices, alerted Anaïs Marin at the United Nations Human Rights Council.
“The situation remains catastrophic. Unfortunately, it keeps getting worse,” she said.
According to Mme Marin, “the lack of accountability for human rights violations fuels a climate of fear among victims and their families”.
In office for five years, she reminded the Council that she had alerted it two years ago to the “totalitarian turn” taken by Minsk, attested by the “contempt for human life and dignity” during the crackdown on peaceful protesters in 2020.
In his annual report, Mr.me Marin says more than 1,500 people were still being held for political reasons, with a daily average of 17 arbitrary arrests since 2020.
I have good reason to believe that prison conditions are deliberately made harsher for those convicted for political reasons, by placing them in punishment cells for minor breaches of prison rules.
the UN special rapporteur in Belarus, Anaïs Marin
Human rights defenders face constant persecution, she added, and more than 1,600 “undesirable organizations have been forcibly dissolved, including all remaining independent unions”.
“This illustrates a deliberate state policy to purge the civic space of its last dissenting elements,” she continued.
Mme Marin also claimed that the independent media had been branded as “extremist organizations”, while academic freedom was “systematically attacked”.
“Ideological control and disciplinary measures restrict freedom of opinion and expression,” she denounced.
Primary and secondary education is also subject to “ideological control”, with children being “discouraged from expressing their own opinions” and subject to “threats and consequences” for dissenting opinions.
Belarus was immediately offered the floor at the Human Rights Council to respond, but no representative was present.