BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

16/05/2007

Concern Over Belarus Bid To Join UN Rights Council

Western governments and human rights activists are concerned over the possibility that Belarus -- sometimes called Europe's last dictatorship -- could win a seat on the United Nations Human Rights Council.

But in a new development, reportedly backed by Western countries, Bosnia-Herzegovina has now joined Belarus and Slovenia in today's elections for one of the two seats on the council set to go to Eastern Europe.

Bosnia put in the last-minute bid to join the UN Human Rights Council on May 15 .

According to the U.S.-based human rights group Freedom House, Western countries pushed Bosnia to run for the council to spoil the bid by Belarus, branded by Washington as Europe's last dictatorship.

Bosnia joins both Belarus and European Union member Slovenia in contesting two vacant East European seats in elections today at the UN General Assembly in New York. Altogether, 14 seats will be up for grabs on the 47-seat council.

In a note to the General Assembly president, Bosnia said its commitment to human rights was "deeply rooted in its distinctive nature as a truly diverse multiethnic and multicultural society."

'Appalling'

Urmi Shah, a spokesperson for the New York-based Human Rights Watch, said it would be "appalling" if Belarus were to be elected to the council.

"Belarus has an appalling human rights record, and has consistently failed to cooperate on any of the UN's human rights mechanisms. 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. His concerns were also echoed by other regional and international organizations, such as the Organization for Security and Cooperation [in Europe], the Council of Europe, and the European Commission," Shah said.

Last year, the UN Human Rights Council replaced the UN Commission on Human Rights, which was widely criticized for ignoring rights abuses in developing countries. At times, the commission had members such as Libya, often seen as a gross human rights abuser.

Council Criticism

The new body has also come in for criticism, particularly after it decided in March to end scrutiny of Iran and Uzbekistan

Shah says Minsk's election to the council would be darkly ironic.

"The point of the new council is, and the new council members who participate on this body -- they are supposed to uphold the highest standards of human rights, and they are supposed to fully cooperate with the council and with the council mechanisms," Shah said.

"Now, Belarus has failed to do this for a long time. And although it says that it will cooperate, thus far it has not really shown this."

As part of its candidacy, Belarus has pledged to uphold human rights, despite international criticism of its elections as not free or fair and widespread reports of suppression of human rights under President Alyaksandr Lukashenka.

In a report by RFE/RL's Belarus Service, Minsk's permanent representative at the UN in Geneva, Syarhey Aleinik, is quoted as calling on the UN Human Rights Council "to renounce the policy of confrontation and concentrate its efforts on constructive cooperation."

Aleinik added: "We have a unique chance to take a new look at things and build a new, universal system of assessing the human rights situation."

Source:

http://www.huliq.com/21792/concern-over-belarus-bid-to-join-un-rights-council