Belarus tries but fails to hinder UN session on rights violations
Belarus' ambassador Yury Ambrazevich wearing a protective face mask attends a meeting of the United Nations Human Rights Council on allegations of torture and other serious violations in her country on Sept. 18. AP
The U.N. Human Rights Council was holding an urgent debate on Belarus on Friday, even though diplomats from Belarus and allied countries tried to prevent reports on violations to be presented at the meeting in Geneva.
Deputy UN?rights chief Nada al-Nashif told the council that there had been thousands of arrests, hundreds of reports of torture, including of children, as well as abductions amid the mass protests against the election of President Alexander Lukashenko to a sixth term in office.
"It is vital for the future of Belarus to break these cycles of increasing repression and violence,"?al-Nashif said. "Civil society is a valuable partner, not a threat," she added.
After al-Nashif's speech, envoys from Belarus, Russia, Venezuela and China raised a long series of points of order to complain that the U.N.?official had been allowed to speak, and to stop additional reports from a U.N. rights investigator and from Belarusian civil society representatives.
The Austrian diplomat who presides over the Human Rights Council, Elisabeth Tichy-Fisslberger, finally issued a ruling to stop these interventions.
The Human Rights Council is set to decide on Friday on a resolution introduced by European countries, which calls on Minsk to stop violations and urges the government to allow a visit by a U.N.?rights investigator.
Belarusian Ambassador Yury Ambrazevic rejected all accusations voiced in the council, which heard video messages from the foreign ministers of Denmark, Slovakia, Poland, the Netherlands and Ukraine.
"We believe it is not acceptable to use this body here to interfere in the election in any individual country,"?Ambrazevic said. (dpa)