BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

18/05/2007

Belarus Fails To Win Seat On UN Human Rights Council

The UN General Assembly on May 17 elected Slovenia and Bosnia-Herzegovina to the UN Human Rights Council, thus blocking Belarus's bid to obtain a seat on the 47-member body, international media reported. International human rights groups campaigned for weeks to prevent the choice of Belarus after the Eastern European group submitted only Belarus and Slovenia for the two seats from that region. "Belarus has an appalling human rights record," Urmi Shah, a spokeswoman for the New York-based group Human Rights Watch, told RFE/RL. "In January of this year, the [UN's] special rapporteur on Belarus, Adrian Severin, noted that the government had failed absolutely to cooperate with the UN's human rights mechanisms," Shah said. Western countries persuaded Bosnia to enter the campaign earlier this week. "We were particularly concerned about Belarus. Some have called it the last dictatorship in Europe," U.S. Ambassador to the UN Zalmay Khalilzad told journalists after Belarus lost the seat to Bosnia in the second round of voting. JM

Source:

http://www.rferl.org/newsline/2007/05/3-CEE/cee-180507.asp