On Monday 6 February, the United Nations special adviser on the human rights situation in Belarus, Miklós Haraszti, asked the European Union to persuade the authorities to allow Belarussian civil society to participate more in the political process.
"The EU is in a unique position (...) to persuade the authorities that the situation will not improve without the inclusion of civil society", he said at a hearing at the European Parliament's sub-committee on human rights.
Haraszti would also like the EU to ask Belarus to support the United Nations mandate. "Belarus has symbolic opportunities to prove its cooperation in the area of human rights. And the question of the death penalty would be an excellent opportunity to show its resolve to cooperate with Europe", he added.
While underlining the importance of the question of the death penalty (which is still applied by Minsk), Haraszti said that human rights were broader. He thus mentioned the lack of independence in the judiciary, the lack of transparency, and the non-pluralism of the media – which prevent a public debate from being held – and the lack of openness to divergent opinions. "The human rights situation must be improved in other areas (Ed: than only the death penalty). This could impact on the quality of the democracy", he added. However, he stated that the human rights situation had improved, and mentioned the example of no political opponent being imprisoned since 2015 or there no longer being arrests for unauthorised demonstrations, but only fines.
"Political rights are still extremely limited, and legislation restrictive", said Valiantsin Stefanovich, a member of the human rights centre, Viasna. "We call on the authorities to take targeted measures to improve the human rights situation systemically, and abolishing the death penalty could be the first step", he added. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)