UN decries ‘politically motivated’ Belarus verdicts

The UN voiced alarm Wednesday at an intensifying crackdown in Belarus, slamming a string of harsh sentences handed to journalists, opposition figures, activists and others as “politically motivated”.

Deputy UN rights chief Nada Al-Nashif decried “severe and disproportionate sentences” recently delivered in the country and reiterated findings that gross violations were being committed across Belarus.

She cited “reasonable grounds to believe (the sentences) are politically motivated” while addressing the United Nations Human Rights Council.

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She presented the findings of the UN rights office’s latest report on Belarus, which detailed a campaign of violence and repression directed at perceived opponents and critics of President Alexander Lukashenko.

Belarus affairs interference

“Some of the human rights violations documented may further amount to crimes against humanity,” she told the council.

Belarusian ambassador Larysa Belskaya slammed the “biased report”.

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China and Russia led calls for the UN to stop interfering in Belarus’s internal affairs, but many countries echoed rights concerns.

US representative Patrick Elliot decried the “harassment and intimidation of thousands of Belarusians forced into exile, including the use of politically motivated trials in absentia”.

Finnish representative Karoliina Heikinheimo-Perez criticising recent “absurd sentences”.

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‘Politically motivated charges’

Last Friday, a Minsk court handed 12-year jail terms to two senior staff at the country’s largest independent news site, the Tut.by portal, shut down after historic demonstrations against Lukashenko in 2020.

Earlier this month, Belarus also sentenced exiled opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya in absentia to 15 years for spearheading the protests, and Nobel Prize winner and rights activist Ales Bialiatski to 10 years.

Al-Nashif said “no fewer than 1,459 persons” were arbitrarily detained in Belarus on what were believed to be “politically motivated charges”.

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As of last month, at least 2,146 people had been convicted in the country under so-called extremism charges, including “insulting the president” and “incitement to social discord”, she added.

© Agence France-Presse