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Poland in the OSCE

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Invocation of the OSCE Vienna Mechanism on Belarus

11.07.2024

On the initiative of the informal Group of Friends of Democratic Belarus, the OSCE is launching the Vienna Mechanism to investigate human rights violations by Belarus against political prisoners.

Vienna Mechanism 11.07.

At the Permanent Council meeting, 38 OSCE participating States*, including Poland, invoked the Vienna Mechanism. The immediate reason for the invocation of the Vienna Mechanism was Belarus' failure to implement the recommendations of the 2023 Moscow Mechanism Report relating to human rights violations.

According to the rules governing the operation of the OSCE Vienna Mechanism, Belarus has 10 days to respond to 11 questions concerning, inter alia: actions of the Belarusian authorities to release political prisoners on humanitarian grounds, access of detainees to medical care, cases of ill-treatment of detainees, access to a lawyer, the procedure for deprivation of citizenship, and repression of families of political prisoners.

Torture, physical and psychological violence, sleep deprivation, lack of medical care and deprivation of contact with family have already led to the deaths of six political prisoners. The deteriorating human rights situation in Belarus is also confirmed by the March 2024 report of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and the March 2024 decision of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).

At least 1,400 people are still unjustly imprisoned in Belarus.

Established in 1989, the OSCE Vienna Mechanism has been used for the exchange of information on issues relating to the human dimension of the Organisation, and its activation does not require consensus, i.e. unanimity. Along with the Moscow Mechanism, the Vienna Mechanism is one of the tools at the OSCE's disposal to analyse the human rights situation in OSCE participating States.

 

*Albania, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Moldova, Montenegro, Netherlands, North Macedonia, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America

Materials

Read the full text of the Joint Statement on Behalf of 38 OSCE States to Invoke the Vienna Human Dimension Mechanism on Political Prisoners in Belarus
240711​_-​_joint​_statement​_1482pc​_-​_Vienna​_Mechanism​_on​_BY.pdf 0.16MB 
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