Report by Belarus and Russia on human rights situation in the West presented at OSCE

The third joint report of the Belarusian and Russian Foreign Ministries, "On the Human Rights Situation in Individual Countries," was presented on July 7 at OSCE headquarters in Vienna. The presentation was led by Irina Velichko, Head of the Main Department for Multilateral Diplomacy at the Belarusian Foreign Ministry, and Grigory Lukyantsev, Director of the Department for Humanitarian Cooperation and Human Rights at the Russian Foreign Ministry, BelTA reports, citing the press service of the Belarusian Foreign Ministry.

"We continue to advocate for strict adherence to universal human rights by all states without the use of 'double standards.' After all, imposing democracy on its own model of international human rights provisions is destructive to international relations and threatens sustainable development," Irina Velichko emphasized. "The report brings a necessary balance to the consideration of human rights issues at the international level, demonstrating that no country is perfect. Consequently, no one has the right to voluntarism or superiority in interstate relations."

She emphasized that the report is not aimed at confrontation over human rights issues. Instead, it presents compelling arguments for the need for Western countries to take domestic measures to eradicate systemic violations of citizens' rights, in order to live up to their self-proclaimed image of exemplary rule-of-law states. "The examples presented in the report serve as confirmation that the Western human rights model is currently unable to cope with this burden," the diplomat stated.

"The fight to ensure human rights today serves as an indulgence not only for blatant interference in the domestic political and electoral processes of sovereign states, but also for measures to stifle their economies," she continued. "Unilateral coercive measures imposed by individual Western countries against so-called 'external enemies,' essentially those states with which the West does not have good bilateral relations, are boomeranging and hitting the citizens of the very countries that initiated such illegal sanctions."

Irina Velichko described current conflicts around the world as the result of the thoughtless "export" of democracy without due consideration of the specific political, economic, and cultural systems of other countries.

"The cynical and consumerist approach of the collective West toward other states, based on permissiveness, has reduced the issue of human rights to the point of absolute absurdity, turning it into a bone of contention and the primary political criterion in building interstate relations," the diplomat stated. "We strongly recommend that the West abandon its mentoring role and focus on resolving its own problems, caused by the short-sighted and destructive policies of Western elites, driven by their own short-term and opportunistic political ambitions."