EU will continue to call on Minsk to release political prisoners in 2023

February 20, BPN. The EU will continue to call on the Belarusian authorities to immediately and unconditionally release all political prisoners, the Council of the European Union has said in a press release on the bloc’s priorities in UN human rights forums in 2023.

One of them will be to call on officials in Minsk to cooperate fully with international and regional human rights monitoring mechanisms.

The EU will speak out against human rights violations and abuses “wherever they occur,” and considers a General Assembly committee and the UN Human Rights Council to be the proper forums to address these issues. The bloc will lead on initiatives regarding Afghanistan, Belarus, Burundi, North Korea, Eritrea, Myanmar, and Ethiopia.

As the year 2023 marks the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Council reaffirms its “unequivocal commitment to respect, protect and fulfil all human rights and to defend their universality,” and advocates “for a strong and efficient UN, able to respond to the challenges of the 21st century.” The Council also calls for “adequate financing” for the UN human rights system.