On the Participation in the Interactive Dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders

05-03-2013

On March 5, 2013 Mr.Evgeny Lazarev, Deputy Head of the Department for multilateral diplomacy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Belarus, made a statement to the 22th session of the Human Rights Council being held in Geneva, Switzerland, during an interactive dialogue with the special rapporteurs on torture and on human rights defenders.

MFA representative noted, that special rapporteur on human rights defenders had taken on board Belarus' recommendation about the need to monitor the situation of human rights defenders in Western countries. For the first time had the special rapporteur mentioned in her report such countries as Canada, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the USA. Special rapporteur has also recently visited an EU-country – Ireland. The situation in Ireland does not turn out to be an ideal one. Therefore Ireland like other EU states should have first cleaned her own house rather than occupy itself with the situation of human rights in other countries.

Mr.Evgeny Lazarev also drew attention of the special rapporteur on torture to the situation of torture in secret CIA jails in several European countries. He emphasized, that in those countries, that reportedly had such jails, no investigation is being carried out. As an example the MFA representative quoted the Czech Republic, which had refused to carry out an investigation on CIA jails without specific request from the Human Rights Council's special procedures. Mr.Evgeny Lazarev proposed to the special rapporteur to visit the Czech Republic to carry out an independent investigation in compliance with the international standards on the presence of CIA jails.

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