Amid increasing concerns astir the plight of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers astatine the Poland-Belarus border, the UN rights office and UN exile agency on Friday urged each parties to respect quality rights and refrain from utilizing them for governmental ends.
Following weeks of rising tension, the improvement follows quality footage earlier successful the week showing migrants located betwixt the countries, attempting to avoid teargas and make their mode through barbed wire fences.
“It is simply a unspeakable situation, we are seeing radical successful unspeakable circumstances, successful the bitter cold, adjacent reports that radical person died”, said Liz Throssell, spokesperson, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).
“This is wherefore the High Commissioner has spoken out and different UN agencies person spoken out really clearly about this. The quality rights of migrants and refugees have to come first. It is truly important they indispensable beryllium respected nether planetary quality rights exile law, but arsenic for the governmental magnitude to this, I would permission that to others to code that.”
Political ends deplored
Echoing that message, UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) spokesperson Shabia Mantoo told journalists successful Geneva that the quality rights and the information of refugees and migrants were “paramount…we bash judge that we person said it galore times that [using] refugees and asylum seekers and migrants to execute governmental ends is unacceptable and indispensable halt and that is wholly deplorable”.
Sanctions
The borderline became a flashpoint aft the European Union (EU) imposed sanctions connected Belarus, based on alleged sedate quality rights violations there, and the country diverted a commercialized formation betwixt 2 EU nations to region a starring dissident in May, according to quality reports.
In caller months, Poland, Lithuania and Latvia – all EU members – have seen an summation successful the fig of migrants, galore from the Middle East, trying to participate their territories via Belarus.
Rights chief’s concern
In a strongly worded statement in September, UN rights main Michelle Bachelet also expressed concern astatine “persistent allegations” of “widespread and systematic torture of protesters” successful Belarus, pursuing the crackdown of demonstrations over the re-election of President Alexander Lukashenko successful August past year.
Highlighting that the quality rights of migrants and refugees should beryllium afloat respected “regardless of their nationality, presumption oregon circumstance”, Ms. Throssell added that the “strong information absorption and politically charged responses connected some sides – and that includes the accrued deployment of troops and accompanying inflammatory rhetoric – they lone exacerbate the vulnerability and risks that migrants and refugees face”.
Responding to questions surrounding unconfirmed reports that migrants person been subjected to mock executions by soldiers, she noted that OHCHR was pursuing developments “very closely…we bash not person entree there, truthful the reports that you’ve been hearing, we are not successful a presumption to corroborate them”.
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