Halavanau: Human rights are not so important to impose sanctions

The Belarusian minister of justice has again made a blunder.

The decision by the EU Foreign Ministers on banning entry to the EU for Belarusian journalists, judges and other citizens was illegal, the Belarusian Minister of Justice, Viktar Halavanau, said at an online conference on BelTA website on July 11.

According to him, it does not comply with the norms of the Constitution of Belarus and norms of European states. Neither does it comply with the UN fundamental documents and the Helsinki Declaration (the final act of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe). “I mean the principle of non-interference in internal affairs of the country. We can notice this tendency imposed by certain politologists… Human rights are said to be such an important issue that allow imposing sanctions in spite of the above mentioned principle. This is wrong,” Halavanau said. He emphasized that the final act of the Helsinki Conference was signed by heads of a number of states and should be respected.

Halavanau noted that introducing sanctions was “of course, not pleasant for our country and people, against whom they were imposed”. “For example, a judge of the Frunzenski district court of Minsk raises her child alone. The child is ill. She wanted to have holidays with him at the sea, but she is banned from entering the EU. Rights of her child are violated. This is an effect of the sanctions,” he said.

Commenting on the resolution of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly adopted on July 9 in Belgrade, the minister of justice said: “It is very bad that respected OSCE MPs and representatives of other agencies take information about our country from certain sources. These sources do not contain much truth…” In his opinion, restrictive measures do not give anything to the states that impose them and to Belarus. “On the contrary, we need to develop the dialogue, establish tighter cooperation and look for touchpoints. Then we will understand each other better,” Halavanau said.

We remind that the resolution calls to free all political prisoners detained in connection with the demonstration on December 19, 2010, “who must be considered political prisoners”. The OSCE PA “calls on the authorities to end the persecution, intimidation and repression of members of opposition political parties via the loss of jobs and university places”. Besides, the resolution urges Belarus to conduct reforms with the aim of democratizing legislation, observe the human rights convention and OSCE principles and calls to cooperate with the OSCE.