MINSK, 4 July (BelTA) – Western states are facing a deep internal crisis, as their political elites are absolutely oblivious of the real needs of their people, Belarus' Minister of Foreign Affairs Vladimir Makei said in the opening remarks to the regular report “The most resonant human rights violations in certain countries 2022” posted on the ministry's website, BelTA has learned.
“The keynote idea behind the report is to show that the Western society is facing an acute problem with the observance of human rights. This problem was aggravated by social tensions caused by public discontent with the continuing COVID-19 restrictions and a sharp drop in living standards,” the minister said.
According to him, it is noteworthy that the countries in question are going to extraordinary lengths to impose their vision of democracy and human rights on other countries of the world. “The report outlines the contours of an internal crisis deeply rooted in Western states, namely, the fact that the political elites cannot care less about the real needs of their people. In pursuit of omnipotence in the world, in a bid to teach other states how they should live, the political leadership of these countries has no time for its citizens. Some of the examples of such a “cancel culture” in respect to ordinary people include systemic discrimination, violent crackdown on peaceful protests happening on almost a daily basis, violations of rights of refugees and migrants, blocking access to the media, etc. All this is documented by the report,” Vladimir Makei emphasized.
In his opinion, the absurdity of the situation lies in the fact that Western leaders whose policies led to the above-mentioned problems, continue to issue themselves a mandate for hostile activities against other sovereign countries, of course, without taking into account the interests of their own society. “In pursuit of power at any cost, they continue their openly criminal activities to impose sanctions against undesirable states. Strangely enough, the first to feel the pain of the sanctions were citizens of Western states. A rhetorical question pops up: did anyone ask these people for permission to pursue such a policy? Did anyone warn them about the consequences they will have to deal with? The answer is obvious: nobody,” the Belarusian foreign minister said.
According to him, Belarus has repeatedly spoken about the inadmissibility of using human rights as a tool in interstate relations. “There are no perfect countries in the world due to objective reasons. Human rights issues should unite, not divide people in any society. Human rights should be the springboard to find acceptable solutions, and not a reason for strife,” Vladimir Makei summed up.
