UN Special Rapporteur: I First Took Professional Interest To Belarus About 10 Years Ago

In what conditions does the UN Special Rapporteur for Belarus Anaïs Morin have to work?

There have been no improvements in the situation with human rights in Belarus, the fundamental rights and freedoms of a person are violated both in fact and legally. Moreover, there is a risk of a deterioration of the situation in connection with the upcoming “elections”, stated Anaïs Morin, the UN Special Rapporteur on Belarus, presenting her report at the summer session of the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) in Geneva.

In an interview with Deutsche Welle, Morin told how she assesses the current state of affairs in the country and how she works in the situation when the government of Belarus does not recognize her mandate.

- You have become the Special Rapporteur on Belarus quite recently - in November 2018. To which extent have your views about Belarus and your expectations from working as a Special Rapporteur coincided with the real state of affairs in the country?

- I first took professional interest to Belarus about ten years ago, mainly in foreign and domestic policy issues. Therefore, I monitor the changes that are occurring in the region. When I took office in the fall of 2018, I hoped that the Belarusian authorities have a desire to make concessions and reforms. However, examining in detail the situation with human rights, receiving complaints and evidence of rights violations from the victims themselves, I quickly became disillusioned with this.

- In the reports about the human rights situation in Belarus, one and the same topics are constantly voiced: the implementation of death penalty, harassment of journalists and activists, detentions at protest actions. What has considerably changed in this year’s report?

- Any report to the UNHRC should have a certain structure and cover all aspects of human rights and freedoms. But changing the speaker still affects the content and the approach to the problems. For example, I decided to focus on problems that had not previously caused so much concern. This is primarily about discrimination.

Also, before the new year, I was contacted directly by the Mothers-328 movement. I listened to them, got acquainted with the material that they collected about the conditions of detention and imprisonment of their children. I was just terrified.

However, I need to recheck all the arguments and allegations of violations, which is very difficult for the special rapporteur to do in the circumstances where there is no access to the country, and the victims of the violations are in prison.

- Immediately after the presentation of your report, the Permanent Representative of Belarus to the UN in Geneva Yury Ambrazevich stated that the human rights situation in Belarus does not deserve consideration by the UN Human Rights Council, and also pointed out that the report itself and your mandate were politically motivated. The Belarusian authorities adhered to the same opinion before - they did not recognize the mandate of the previous Special Rapporteur and did not allow the official visit to the country. How do you manage to work under such conditions?

- Indeed, the Belarusian authorities perceive the special procedure of considering the situation with human rights in Belarus as an illegitimate intervention. They consider the mandate politicized, since the initiative to create it came from the EU at a time when the repressions in Belarus were very tough (the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Belarus was established in 2012; upon the results of the “presidential election”, which ended in mass arrests and detentions, as well as criminal sentences for former presidential candidates - Edit.)

And since the previous Special Rapporteur Miklós Harazsti year after year indicated that the situation with human rights in the country did not significantly improve, but, on the contrary, in some areas even worsened, the HRO extended its mandate every year. But the Belarusian authorities did not allow his official visit to Minsk and ignored him.

Belarus seems to apply the same approach to me. In November, I sent a letter to the Foreign Ministry with a request to allow me to come to Belarus with an official visit, but received no reply. For me it was a disappointment.

As a result, I had to work without access to the country, the government and official data. I have no contact with the authorities of Belarus. For work, I use the information that can be found in the public domain on the Internet or which I receive from representative offices of various international organizations in Minsk. And, of course, non-governmental and human rights organizations of Belarus share their data with me, and I am very grateful to everyone for that.

- How do you see your mission of a Special Rapporteur on human rights situation in Belarus? What would you consider a significant result of your work upon the expiration of your mandate?

- My mission is to positively influence in any way the development of Belarus in the field of protection and promotion of human rights. This is a difficult task. But it must be remembered that I am an independent expert, which means that I will have the respect of the HRC only if I strictly follow the code of conduct for the special rapporteurs, and act within the framework of the resolution on the mandate. I must be impartial in assessing the state of affairs in the country.

In a situation where Belarus in general does not contribute to the realization of my mission, I will welcome any, even small steps. I think that one should not provoke the government and immediately focus on those aspects in which the authorities are obviously not ready to make concessions. I think there is a greater chance of success if I choose more universal topics, such as children's rights, because adolescents who are convicted under narcotic articles and serve longer, more than 10 years, prison terms are primarily children under the Convention on the Rights of the Child. And I would consider as progress any improvement in their life in prison and every year by which they managed to reduce their prison sentences.

- How, in your opinion, is it possible to force the authorities of Belarus to use more attentive approaches to the issues of respect of human rights in the country?

- There are no magic remedies. If it were clear to everyone what to do, the post of a special rapporteur would not be needed. There are different approaches to this issue. I believe that we need to apply the policy of small steps. However, I am not a diplomat, in my position it is difficult not to offend the government of Belarus ...

It seems to me that only time and people who are really ready to improve the situation from within, in the society and in the bureaucratic apparatus, can do something. Any changes must occur from within to be stable and legitimate.