Belarus’ Foreign Ministry issues report on human rights violations in certain countries in 2012

Belarus’ Foreign Ministry has prepared a report “Human Rights Violations in Certain Countries in 2012”. The report by Belarus’ Foreign Ministry is based upon the information from the Belarusian diplomatic missions, the media and other reliable open sources. “We did not seek to provide a complete picture of the situation of human rights in the countries in question, but rather we have tried to draw attention to the most resonant human rights violations in 2012,” Foreign Minister Vladimir Makei says in the forward to the report. According to him, the aim of the report is to draw attention to the human rights violations in those countries that traditionally represent themselves as “developed democracies”, to illustrate by concrete facts their failure to comply with international legal obligations and, no less importantly, to spotlight the victims that are traditionally given a blind eye by violating states as well as by international organizations operating in the area of human rights. The Belarusian side is concerned that more often the relationship between states on human rights issues abandon the principle of equality of partners, pursuing various paths of development with the common objective being the prosperity for their citizens, while increasingly become associated with diktat, pressure and imposition of their “solely accurate opinion”.