Belarus has been criticized once again at UNO Human Rights Council Session

15th session of the UNO Human Rights Council is taking place in Geneva. On the very first day, on September 13, the UNO Higher Commissioner on Human Rights Navanethem Pillay criticized Belarus for poor conditions with regard to the rights of non-governmental organizations. Critical remarks about our country continued on September 17. Belgian representative Alex Van Meeuwen stated the following on behalf of the European Union:

"The European Union hopes that Presidential elections in Belarus will be conducted without human rights violations, especially it concerns the rights for freedom of word and freedom of public associations. The European Union also appeals to Belarusian authorities with a demand to abolish death penalty".

Apart from Belarus, Alex Van Meeuwen also focused on situation with human rights in Iran, Bahrain, Sudan, Somali, Myanmar, North Korea and China.

Representatives of the countries with the highest democratic and human rights standards in the world - Norway and Sweden - also expressed their sadness with regard to human rights situation in Belarus.

Norwegian representative Geir Sjøberg: "We share worries of the UNO Higher Commissioner on Human Rights with regard to the situation in Belarus. Civic society members, including human rights activists, religious communities, media, political parties still have limitations to conduct legal activity".

Geir Sjøberg specially underlined that respect for human rights is the basic condition for increasing of relationship between Belarus and Europe.

Swedish representative Jan Knutsson: "Recent incidents in Belarus make us sad. They reveal how complicated the situation is for journalists who conduct investigations, and for human rights activists".

Belarusian delegation used their rights to respond to the critics. The representative of the Permanent Mission under UNO authority Andrej Taranda stated:

"We would like to ask the Norwegian delegation to refrain from interpretation statements on the speech of the Higher Commissioner, which they declare with an aim to legitimize their worries".

He revealed the number of registered religious communities and public associations on the whole, as a counter-argument to the statement about oppression of religious freedoms and civic organizations. 

Andrej Taranda : "Dynamics of stable increase of the quantity of public associations in Belarus is the best proof that critical remarks about us are biased. More than 2200 public associations conduct their activity in Belarus. 94 new associations have been registered in 2009".

Besides, according to official statistics, by October 30, 2003 there have been 2 248 public associations, and 2 225 - by January 2010.

As for the critical remarks about the situation with freedom of word, journalists and human rights activists, Belarusian delegation fully refrained from answering to them.

Let us remind you, that foreign governments worded 93 recommendations on improvement the situation with human rights in Belarus upon the results of the 8th working session of the Universal periodical observation, which took place in May. 

The Belarusian delegation is to speak about the most principal ones on September 23 and say whether Belarus is going to follow them. Among these recommendations there are abolishment of the article on criminal responsibility for activity on behalf of unregistered organizations, introduction of moratorium on death penalty, ratification of a series of international agreements.