International Day of Commemoration and Dignity of the Victims of the Crime of Genocide observed December 9

The International Day of Commemoration and Dignity of the Victims of the Crime of Genocide and of the Prevention of this Crime is observed on December 9.

The day was proclaimed by the UN General Assembly in September 2015. The date was not chosen randomly: the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide was adopted on December 9, 1948.

The 1948 resolution was the first human rights treaty adopted by the General Assembly. All 193 member states that adopted the convention unanimously affirmed that each country is separately responsible for protecting its people from genocide, also preventing such a crime, including incitement to it. The purpose of this day is to raise awareness of the convention and to honor the memory of people who have been victims of genocide.

Genocide is defined in the convention as "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group. The resolution affirms that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or time of war, is a crime that violates international law and against which the parties to the convention undertake "to take measures to prevent and punish". The primary responsibility for preventing and combating genocide rests with the State in which the crime is committed.

At the 2005 World Summit, heads of state discussed and unanimously agreed that the international community would assist a country that for any reason was unable to protect its population from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. It is also ready to take collective action through the Security Council and in accordance with the United Nations Charter.

In the Republic of Belarus, in the Year of Historical Memory, the law "On the Genocide of the Belarusian People" was approved. The law was adopted to preserve the memory of millions of Soviet citizens who became victims during the Great Patriotic War and the postwar period, in accordance with the Constitution of the Republic of Belarus and on the basis of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of 9 December 1948 and the Convention on the Non-Applicability of Statutory Limitations to War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity of 26 November 1968.

During the WWII, every third inhabitant of Belarus, almost 3 million people, died. A separate tragic page of that barbaric war was the actual total extermination of the Belarusian Jews. According to experts and historians, about 800,000 Jews died in the territory of Belarus, including in the Minsk ghetto and Trostenets concentration camp. During the war years Belarus actually suffered two genocides on its territory: the holocaust of Belarusian Jews and the genocide of Belarusians as part of the Eastern Slavs.