GENEVA, September 24. /TASS/. Russia sees as "politically biased" the report on Belarus the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet has presented in Geneva. This report is an example of crude intervention in the internal affairs of a sovereign country, Russia's permanent representative to the UN office in Geneva, Gennady Gatilov, told the UN Human Rights Council on Friday.
"We have to note with regret the political bias of the presented verbal report on the situation in Belarus," Gatilov said. He recalled that from the very beginning, Russia had been against the adoption of the HRC's resolution on which this report was based.
"It has become another vivid example of crude intervention in the internal affairs of sovereign Belarus on the excuse of ostensible concern about human rights," Gatilov said.
He pointed out that the report "has demonstrated once again that the creation of politically motivated country monitoring mechanisms, regardless of their disguise, is counter-productive and futile."
Such a report, he warned, "is capable of exacerbating the confrontation."
The Russian diplomat described as "unjustified" the UN High Commissioner's decision "to appoint three experts for examining the human rights situation in Belarus."
Such a move "by no means stems from the essence of the instruction issued by the Council."
Gatilov called for avoiding such half-baked decisions in the future.
The UN HRC passed a resolution on Belarus on September 18, 2020. Bachelet was asked to closely monitor the human rights situation in the country. The High Commissioner told the HRC on Friday she had appointed three international experts — Susan Bazilli, of Canada, Karinna Moskalenko, of Russia and Marko Milanovic, of Serbia. In her verbal report, Bachelet argued that in 2021 the situation continued to deteriorate.