2021-10-25 18:31 update: 2021-10-26, 18:25
Fot. PAP/Artur Reszko
Representatives of over 40 countries, including Poland, condemned in a joint Monday statement at the United Nations the human rights violations by the Belarusian regime, including the use of migrants for political purposes.
According to the statement, made at the meeting of the Third Committee of the UN General Assembly on Social, Humanitarian and Human Rights in New York, illegal crossings of the EU's external border supported by the Belarusian state are deliberately putting at risk and endangering the lives of third-country nationals.
The statement was signed among others by the United States, the European Union, the UK, Australia, Japan, Canada and South Korea.
The signatories expressed their deep concern over the Belarusian regime's lack of cooperation with international human rights mechanisms and the total impunity of human rights violators.
They also condemned the repression of oppositionists, the media, national minorities and representatives of civil society, as well as the forced landing of a Ryanair plane in Minsk and the attempt to force Belarusian Olympic athlete Krystsina Tsimanouskaya to return to the country.
Krzysztof Szczerski, permanent representative of Poland to the United Nations, told PAP that the statement was the result of Polish diplomatic efforts.
"The Belarusian hybrid operation is an example of the first migration crisis in modern Europe, which was deliberately planned, stimulated and organised by a third country, using methods and means hitherto typical only for criminal organisations," Szczerski said in New York.
"The authorities in Minsk treat migrants instrumentally as a weapon in their fight against the West," he added. (PAP)
