The day the Nobel Peace Prize winner sends a direct message to President Vladimir Putin against their crackdown, Brazil chooses to avoid a UN resolution assessing the human rights situation in Russia and criticizing the closure of one of the peace winners. Award given by Oslo, which creates a special rapporteur to monitor and investigate possible violations in Moscow.
Two hours after Oslo announced the award to Belarus’ Ales Bialiatski, Russian human rights organization Memorial and Ukrainian human rights organization Civil Liberties Center, the UN Human Rights Council evaluated a proposal for a resolution condemning human rights violations in Russia.
In the text, which was approved this Friday without Brazil’s vote, governments express “concern about the mass forced closure of civil society organizations, including the International Center for Human Rights “Monument”.
The vote ended with 17 mostly European countries supporting the resolution. The United States, Argentina and Paraguay also defended the proposal. However, the text added 24 abstentions and only six dissenting votes. Besides Brazil, countries such as Pakistan, Somalia, Libya and India abstained.
The Brazilian government has yet to comment on the reason for its abstention. But since April, Itamaraty has chosen not to endorse resolutions proposed by the Americans and Europeans on the grounds that such measures only deepen international tensions.
Questioned by the UOL, Russia’s ambassador to the UN, Gennady Gatilo, said he hoped Brazil would not just abstain but vote against the resolution.
The text further states that governments are “concerned about the significant deterioration of the human rights situation in the Russian Federation, in particular the severe restrictions on freedom of opinion and expression, the rights to peaceful assembly and association, both online and offline.” It resulted in systematic crackdowns against non-governmental organizations, human rights defenders, in particular women human rights defenders facing specific gender-based threats, independent media, journalists, media workers, lawyers, and political opposition from the Russian authorities and extrajudicial execution of the government. critics”.
The resolution also expresses “deep concern” at the arbitrary mass arrests, detentions and harassment of civil society representatives, human rights defenders, representatives of the political opposition and journalists.
The approved document states that “they are concerned about the deterioration of the rule of law in the Russian Federation, as well as the arrests of persons who peacefully protest and raise their voices against the aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine and the excessive use of force against these persons”,
Resolution still:
1. Strongly encourages the Russian authorities to fulfill all State obligations under international human rights law;
2. Calls upon the Russian authorities to protect the fundamental freedoms of thought, conscience, religion or belief, idea and expression, peaceful assembly and association, in particular to abolish the rights connected with freedom as well as restrictions on the diversity of ideas, criticism and opposition. and personal security, fair trial and immunity from torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment for persons exercising these freedoms;
3. Decides to appoint a Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in the Russian Federation for a period of one year and requests the post holder to monitor the situation of human rights in the Russian Federation, collect relevant information, examine and evaluate it. All stakeholders inside and outside the country, including Russian civil society, cooperate with other relevant UN human rights mechanisms, make recommendations and submit a comprehensive report to the Human Rights Council, taking into account the relevant dimensions of age, gender and disability.
source: Noticias
