EFJ welcomes OSCE mission to Belarus

As request­ed by the EFJ and Human Rights Watch on 26 August, final­ly 17 gov­ern­ments of OSCE par­tic­i­pat­ing states agreed on Thurs­day evening to acti­vate the so-called “Moscow Mech­a­nism”, which allows the OSCE to send an inter­na­tion­al expert mis­sion to a state sus­pect­ed of human rights vio­la­tions.

Bel­gium, Czech Repub­lic, Den­mark, Esto­nia, Fin­land, France, Ice­land, Latvia, Lithua­nia, Nor­way, The Nether­lands, Poland, Roma­nia, Slo­va­kia, the Unit­ed King­dom, Cana­da and the Unit­ed States invoked the so-called “Moscow Mech­a­nism” in rela­tion to human rights vio­la­tions in Belarus.

That means, in prac­tice, that an inde­pen­dent expert mis­sion will be estab­lished to inves­ti­gate and report human rights abus­es in Belarus. This mis­sion can be organ­ised with­out the con­sent of Belaru­sian author­i­ties, but Min­sk can still refuse to issue visas to experts. In that case, the OSCE rap­por­teurs would be forced to pre­pare their report with infor­ma­tion col­lect­ed from out­side Belarus.

The OSCE has been very slow to react. “It wasn’t until August 22 that the Chair­per­son-in-Office (CiO), Alban­ian Prime Min­is­ter and Min­is­ter for For­eign Affairs Edi Rama — togeth­er with the incom­ing OSCE CiO, Swedish For­eign Min­is­ter Ann Linde — sent a let­ter to Lukashenko. They sug­gest­ed vis­it­ing Belarus to meet with gov­ern­ment and oppo­si­tion rep­re­sen­ta­tives. A week lat­er, Rama reit­er­at­ed his offer at a spe­cial meet­ing of the OSCE Per­ma­nent Coun­cil in Vien­na,” wrote jour­nal­ist Stephanie Liech­sten­stein in SHRMon­i­tor.

The fail­ure of Rama’s call for dia­logue prompt­ed a group of 17 states to take action today by trig­ger­ing the “Moscow Mech­a­nism”.

“Even if its actu­al effects on the sit­u­a­tion in Belarus may be lim­it­ed,” com­ment­ed on Twit­ter Stephanie Liecht­en­stein, “I think this will send a strong sig­nal that OSCE states take gross human rights vio­la­tions seri­ous­ly.”

The EFJ hopes that the OSCE expert mis­sion will be able to oper­ate freely and quick­ly in Belarus. We call on the experts to doc­u­ment the mul­ti­ple vio­la­tions of press free­dom mon­i­tored by the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists (BAJ) since the fraud­u­lent pres­i­den­tial elec­tions on 9 August:

180 jour­nal­ists have been arbi­trar­i­ly detained to pre­vent them from cov­er­ing demon­stra­tions against elec­toral fraud and vio­lence;

52 jour­nal­ists have been vic­tims of vio­lence;

restric­tions on access to infor­ma­tion can no longer be count­ed (block­ing of mul­ti­ple online media, obsta­cles to print­ing and dis­tri­b­u­tion of news­pa­pers, sup­pres­sion of accred­i­ta­tion for jour­nal­ists work­ing for for­eign media, expul­sions of spe­cial envoys…).

The EFJ calls on OSCE experts to meet as soon as pos­si­ble with the lead­er­ship of BAJ, which will be able to draw up a list of those respon­si­ble for repeat­ed press free­dom vio­la­tions in Belarus.

“We remain dis­ap­point­ed by the slow response from the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty,” said EFJ Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Ricar­do Gutiér­rez. “Forty days after the elec­toral fraud and the mas­sive crack­down on jour­nal­ists, the Euro­pean Union has still not tak­en any sanc­tions against those respon­si­ble. We wel­come the progress made by the OSCE. I invite the Euro­pean Coun­cil to fol­low this exam­ple. It is high time to take action.” 

BREAKING NEWS

1/ Today 17 @OSCE states invoked the Moscow Mech­a­nism in rela­tion to human rights vio­la­tions in #Belarus.The states are: US,Belgium,Canada,the Czech Republic,Denmark,Estonia,Finland,France,Iceland,Latvia,Lithuania,Norway,Netherlands,Poland,Romania,Slovakia,&UK.

— Steph Liecht­en­stein  (@StLiechtenstein) Sep­tem­ber 17, 2020

Enfin! #Belarus https://t.co/BtLE6WemL7

— Ricar­do Gutiér­rez (@Molenews1) Sep­tem­ber 17, 2020

The UK will not stand by while the Belaru­sian author­i­ties repress their cit­i­zens with impuni­ty.

Along­side 16 @OSCE coun­tries, the UK today invoked the #MoscowMech­a­nism, trig­ger­ing an inde­pen­dent inves­ti­ga­tion in Belarus. https://t.co/7ZTTSvymLr

— Dominic Raab (@DominicRaab) Sep­tem­ber 17, 2020