The most serious cause for concern is the resurgence of racism and racial discrimination, reads the foreword to the third joint report on the human rights situation in certain countries by the Foreign Affairs Ministries of Belarus and Russia, BelTA has learned.
Belarus and Russia have repeatedly pointed out at international human rights forums and in thematic human rights reports, that despite the availability of the legal mechanisms within the UN, OSCE, and several other international organizations that reject, condemn, and prohibit the glorification of Nazism, racism, xenophobia, and related forms of intolerance, a number of countries are openly propagating racist ideas and celebrating national radicals with impunity.
"There is a fairly distinct group of states that have openly embarked on a path of glorifying Nazism and Nazi collaborators, and are making efforts to falsify history, including for the purpose of whitewashing their own Nazi and fascist past. Another, and quite substantial, group of states stands out because structural racism and intolerance have seeped into all areas of public life there,” the ministries noted.
Such ideological positions are being put into practice, as demonstrated in the relevant sections of the report. “What causes the greatest concern is that we are no longer talking about spontaneous, isolated statements by individual politicians who are scoring political points by demonizing representatives of other peoples, but rather about an entire system of such views, one that is returning the world to an era of medieval barbarism and a ‘war of all against all’. These approaches are completely destroying the principles and manifestations of humanism that operate in international politics, eroding established notions of normality and acceptability, and essentially laying the groundwork for a new public morality, one that presupposes inequality, discrimination, and even the very possibility of eliminating those who are deemed undesirable,” the foreword to the joint report emphasizes.
Belarus and Russia have repeatedly pointed out at international human rights forums and in thematic human rights reports, that despite the availability of the legal mechanisms within the UN, OSCE, and several other international organizations that reject, condemn, and prohibit the glorification of Nazism, racism, xenophobia, and related forms of intolerance, a number of countries are openly propagating racist ideas and celebrating national radicals with impunity.
"There is a fairly distinct group of states that have openly embarked on a path of glorifying Nazism and Nazi collaborators, and are making efforts to falsify history, including for the purpose of whitewashing their own Nazi and fascist past. Another, and quite substantial, group of states stands out because structural racism and intolerance have seeped into all areas of public life there,” the ministries noted.
Such ideological positions are being put into practice, as demonstrated in the relevant sections of the report. “What causes the greatest concern is that we are no longer talking about spontaneous, isolated statements by individual politicians who are scoring political points by demonizing representatives of other peoples, but rather about an entire system of such views, one that is returning the world to an era of medieval barbarism and a ‘war of all against all’. These approaches are completely destroying the principles and manifestations of humanism that operate in international politics, eroding established notions of normality and acceptability, and essentially laying the groundwork for a new public morality, one that presupposes inequality, discrimination, and even the very possibility of eliminating those who are deemed undesirable,” the foreword to the joint report emphasizes.
“This fundamentally negates all foundational achievements in the form of international treaties and other multilateral human rights documents. This is precisely why such views must be met with decisive opposition from all reasonable members of the international community.”
The joint report includes an assessment of the human rights situation in selected countries, including those that consider themselves “developed democracies” and view themselves as “exemplary” in terms of human rights protection, as well as states that gravitate toward this group. In practice, however, these countries not only fail to protect human rights but also turn a blind eye to their widespread violations.
Based on data from international and national sources, and the materials from human rights non-governmental organizations, the study compiles factual information on human rights violations in these countries. In preparing the report, account was taken of recommendations from international universal and regional human rights mechanisms, in particular, treaty bodies (committees) and regional human rights institutions that have been addressed to the governments of the states under review. The numerous examples from both the present and the past, gathered in this report, convincingly demonstrate the importance and even urgency of uniting the efforts of all constructively minded members of the international community in order to successfully confront both persistent and emerging challenges and to mitigate their negative consequences.
In the view of the Belarusian and Russian sides, such cooperation offers nations a chance to completely eradicate colonialism, including by eliminating the remnants of neocolonial thinking and its modern reincarnations and also racism, racial discrimination, and related forms of intolerance. Such a system would also be able to prevent attempts by individual countries to “hijack” the system of international law and to use its universal human rights mechanisms for self-serving purposes.