“Pro-Soviet propaganda and a cult of personality... A regime that is turning into a true dictatorship, with pronounced totalitarian tendencies.” These were the unequivocal terms used by the UN expert for human rights, Adrian Séverin, to qualify the situation in Belarus on Thursday. The State is the last of the European states to use the death penalty.
In charge of investigating civil liberties and freedoms there, the special reporter wasn’t “invited” to the country (a UN euphemism meaning that he was not authorised to go there). The deprecative 25-page report which he presented at the Human Rights Council is hence based on the many individual reports and on reports from trustworthy organisations outside the country.
Dissidents are locked up in psychiatric hospitals; journalists and political opponents disappear or are assassinated. Police brutality, arbitrary imprisonment, torture, censorship of the press and the internet... The UN expert also mentions the total black out concerning the radioactive fallout in Chernobyl which contaminated more than two-thirds of the Belorussian territory. Yet this small country, with a population of 10 million, signed and ratified most of the UN conventions on human rights (significantly more than the United States or Cuba).
Séverin’s speech was violently attacked by a horde of Southern countries including Cuba, China, Iran, Pakistan and all the Islamist States. They blamed the special reporter for making calumnious remarks and not mentioning anything positive about the country. They asked that his mandate be terminated.
“Disproportionate Powers”
In answer to this, the reporter reminded that the suffering endured by the population there “was far from being abstract” and requested that his mandate be maintained (with or without him). Especially since repressive actions seem to have significantly increased in the last years. “The president’s powers are disproportional”, Séverin denounces.
Indeed, Lukashenko can appoint and revoke his ministers, judges and lawyers. He can annul government decisions and make decrees. And even more serious is his “right to exonerate, without a trial, anyone who commits a criminal violation that has seriously harmed State assets or public interests.” Séverin continues with “The State’s resources are primarily used to pay and control the bureaucratic machine, the police, the KGB and the armed forces, as well as to spread presidential propaganda.”
The reporter also speaks of a “shadow budget” funded by corruption and commissions on arms sales. He denounces the “regime’s participation in international smuggling, contraband and organised crime.” Referring to Human Rights Watch, he points to Sudan, Algeria, the Ivory Coast, Morocco, Ouganda, Iran, Yemen, Angola, and Ethiopia. This part of the report partially explains why these countries are up in arms against Séverin.
In his conclusions, the reporter asks that an International Commission of legal experts be able to investigate the regime’s exactions, and requests that a quasi economic embargo be imposed. He also requests that the European Union and the United States continue to deny Belorussian leaders access to their territories.