Anaïs Marin | |
---|---|
Born | 1977 (age 46–47) |
Education | Sciences Po |
Known for | United Nations special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Belarus |
Predecessor | Miklós Haraszti |
Anais Marin (born 1977) is a French political scientist. In 2022, she became the United Nations special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Belarus.
Marin was born in 1977. Marin completed a degree in political science at Science Po Paris and completed her doctorate at the Centre de recherches internationales (CERI) there with a dissertation on the influence of paradiplomacy in Saint Petersburg on the foreign policy of the Russian Federation in the 1990s under the supervision of Anne de Tinguy. [1]
She took up a postdoctoral position at the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, where she studied the European Union's eastern external borders. In 2011, she became a Belarus officer for the Finnish think tank Finnish Institute of International Affairs (FIIA). [2] In this role, she has been a member of several expert networks informing and advising European decision-makers regarding Belarus. From 2015 to 2018, she was a Marie Curie Researcher at the Collegium Civitas university in Warsaw, associated with the European Union Institute for Security Studies in Paris. Her academic work and publications focus on the diplomacy of authoritarian regimes in post-Soviet Eurasia.
Marin taught Slavic studies and political science at the University of Clermont-Ferrand, Russian legal translation at the Lomonosov Centre in Geneva and international relations at the University of Helsinki. She participated in the OSCE election observation missions in the former USSR. She was a researcher at the University of Warsaw. She began working on a research project on dealing with threats from Russia, weaknesses of the European democratic project and possible ways of dealing with destabilising activities by Russia in 2019. [3] [1]
Since 1 November 2018, Marin has been the United Nations special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Belarus for the United Nations Human Rights Council, succeeding the Hungarian academic Miklós Haraszti. [4]
When the 2020 presidential election in Belarus led to nationwide protests over massive manipulation by the Lukashenka government, which the regime violently suppressed, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights reported in September 2020 that there had been reports of over 450 documented cases of torture and ill-treatment since the day of the presidential election. In a statement signed by Anaïs Marin and a number of UN representatives, it said that the authorities in Belarus must immediately end all human rights violations. No one should be prosecuted for peacefully participating in demonstrations. In September 2021, Marin described the situation in Belarus as catastrophic. On September 6, two prominent Belarusian opposition figures, Maryja Kalesnikava and Maxim Znak, were sentenced to 11 and 10 years in prison [5] for "conspiracy" in a trial described by the United States as "shameful ". [6]
In June 2024, she published her "Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Belarus". She reported a deterioration which she attributed to the liklihood of a new election. [7]
Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Belarus spans an area of 207,600 square kilometres (80,200 sq mi) with a population of 9.1 million. The country has a hemiboreal climate and is administratively divided into six regions. Minsk is the capital and largest city; it is administered separately as a city with special status.
The politics of Belarus takes place in a framework of a presidential republic with a bicameral parliament. The President of Belarus is the head of state. Executive power is nominally exercised by the government, at its top sits a ceremonial prime minister, appointed directly by the President. Legislative power is de jure vested in the bicameral parliament, the National Assembly, however the president may enact decrees that are executed the same way as laws, for undisputed time.
The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) is a United Nations body whose mission is to promote and protect human rights around the world. The Council has 47 members elected for staggered three-year terms on a regional group basis. The headquarters of the Council are at the United Nations Office at Geneva in Switzerland.
Special rapporteur is the title given to independent human rights experts whose expertise is called upon by the United Nations (UN) to report or advise on human rights from a thematic or country-specific perspective.
The State Security Committee of the Republic of Belarus is the national intelligence agency of Belarus. Along with its counterparts in Transnistria and South Ossetia, it kept the unreformed name after declaring independence.
The Constitution of the Republic of Belarus is the supreme basic law of Belarus. The Constitution is composed of a preamble and nine sections divided into 146 articles.
Miklós Haraszti is a Hungarian politician, writer, journalist, human rights advocate and university professor. He served the maximum of two terms as the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media from 2004 to 2010. Currently he is adjunct professor at the School of International & Public Affairs of Columbia Law School, New York and visiting professor at the Central European University (CEU), Department of Public Policy.
Mutual relations between the Republic of Belarus and the European Union (EU) were initially established after the European Economic Community recognised Belarusian independence in 1991.
The government of Belarus is criticized for its human rights violations and persecution of non-governmental organisations, independent journalists, national minorities, and opposition politicians. In a testimony to the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, former United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice labeled Belarus as one of the world's six "outposts of tyranny". In response, the Belarusian government called the assessment "quite far from reality". During 2020 Belarusian presidential election and protests, the number of political prisoners recognized by Viasna Human Rights Centre rose dramatically to 1062 as of 16 February 2022. Several people died after the use of unlawful and abusive force by law enforcement officials during 2020 protests. According to Amnesty International, the authorities did not investigate violations during protests, but instead harassed those who challenged their version of events. In July 2021, the authorities launched a campaign against the remaining non-governmental organizations, liquidating at least 270 of them by October, including all previously registered human rights organizations in the country.
MikolaViktaravich Statkevich is a Belarusian lieutenant colonel, politician, and opposition leader who was a presidential candidate at the 2010 Belarusian presidential election. Since 31 May 2020 he is held in prison by Belarusian authorities. Viasna Human Rights Centre recognized him as a political prisoner. On 14 December 2021, Statkevich was sentenced to 14 years in prison.
The Belarusian opposition consists of groups and individuals in Belarus seeking to challenge, from 1988 to 1991, the authorities of Soviet Belarus, and since 1995, the leader of the country Alexander Lukashenko, whom supporters of the movement often consider to be a dictator. Supporters of the movement tend to call for a parliamentary democracy based on a Western model, with freedom of speech and political and religious pluralism.
The Viasna Human Rights Centre is a human rights organization based in Minsk, Belarus. The organization aims to provide financial and legal assistance to political prisoners and their families, and was founded in 1996 by activist Ales Bialatski in response to large-scale repression of demonstrations by the government of Alexander Lukashenko.
Ales Viktaravich Bialiatski is a Russian-born Belarusian pro-democracy activist and prisoner of conscience known for his work with the Viasna Human Rights Centre. An activist for Belarusian independence and democracy since the early 1980s, Bialiatski is a founding member of Viasna and the Belarusian Popular Front, serving as leader of the latter from 1996 to 1999. He is also a member of the Coordination Council of the Belarusian opposition. He has been called "a pillar of the human rights movement in Eastern Europe" by The New York Times, and recognised as a prominent pro-democracy activist in Belarus.
Presidential elections were held in Belarus on 11 October 2015. Long-term president Alexander Lukashenko ran for his fifth term in office, having won every presidential election since independence in 1991. He was re-elected with 84% of the vote, according to official figures. The 'against all' option received more votes than any opposition candidate.
Michel Forst is a French national actively involved in the defence of human rights. Former Secretary General of the French national human rights institution, he was the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders from June 2014 to March 2020.
Alena Douhan of Belarus is the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the negative impact of the unilateral coercive measures on the enjoyment of human rights, as 25 March 2020. When appointed, she was a professor of International Law and the Director of the Peace Research Center at the Belarusian State University. Douhan's position on economic sanctions have garnered criticism from some international human rights law scholars.
The 2020–2021 Belarusian protests were a series of mass political demonstrations and protests against the Belarusian government and President Alexander Lukashenko. The largest anti-government protests in the history of Belarus, the demonstrations began in the lead-up to and during the 2020 presidential election, in which Lukashenko sought his sixth term in office. In response to the demonstrations, a number of relatively small pro-government rallies were held.
The Coordination Council, originally known as the Coordination Council for ensuring the transfer of power is a non-governmental body created by presidential candidate Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya to facilitate a democratic transfer of power in Belarus. The council, founded during the 2020 Belarusian protests in response to the disputed 2020 Belarusian presidential election, originally had 64 core members with a 7-member leadership presidium.
The following is a list of the official reactions to the 2020 Belarusian presidential election and the surrounding 2020 Belarusian protests.