The capital of Belarus is Minsk, Victory Square. Human rights activist from Russia will head the UN Group of Experts on Human Rights in Belarus Human rights
Human rights activists Karinna Moskalenko from Russia, Susan Basilli from Canada and Monika Stanislawa Platek from Poland will monitor the human rights situation in Belarus. This was announced on Friday by the Chairman of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC), Omar Zniber.
A group of independent experts on the human rights situation in Belarus was established by a UNHRC resolution in April of this year. Its members will have to collect and analyze information received from various sources, including from the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in the country. All three members of the group have an extensive track record.
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So , lawyer, teacher and attorney with over thirty years of experience Susan Basilliheads the International Women’s Rights Project. She has previously worked on women’s rights training programs in the Balkans, the Baltic region and East Africa, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) missions in Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan, the UN missions in Southeast Asia, Central Asia and Africa.
Monica Stanislawa Platek is Professor and Head of the Department of Criminology at the Faculty of Law at the University of Warsaw. Her professional interests include criminal and civil law, gender studies and the topic of feminism in the legal sphere, as well as the protection of human rights within the penitentiary system.
Human rights activist from Russia Karinna Moskalenko, to whom the President of the UNHRC assigned the duties of Chairperson of the Group, has headed the Center for International Protection in Strasbourg since 2017. A member of the Moscow Helsinki Group since 1999, from 1999 to 2007 she was a member of the Expert Council of the Commissioner for Human Rights in the Russian Federation. In 2001, Karinna Moskalenko became the first Russian lawyer to win a case in the European Court of Human Rights.
Members of the Group, as well as other independent experts of the UN Rights Council persons, act in a personal capacity and do not receive a salary for their work.
Previously, independent experts, as well as the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, have repeatedly expressed concern about the cases human rights violations in Belarus. Members of the Group will present their report on the human rights situation in Belarus at the Fifty-eighth session of the UNHRC, which will be held from February 24 to April 4, 2025.