The Russian delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) has protested the suggestion by PACE legal affairs committee to form an international body for investigating alleged human rights violations in Belarus, the Russian Foreign Ministry told Sputnik on Thursday
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 17th September, 2020) The Russian delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) has protested the suggestion by PACE legal affairs committee to form an international body for investigating alleged human rights violations in Belarus, the Russian Foreign Ministry told Sputnik on Thursday.
Russia does not agree with the "biased estimates" outlined in the statement and sees it as "an attempt to interfere in domestic affairs of a sovereign nation," the Foreign Ministry said. The ministry slammed the calls for creating the international body for the probe as inadmissible, stressing that "neither the assembly nor the Council of Europe as a whole have such powers."
"The head of our delegation at the PACE, deputy head of the State Duma [Russian lower chamber], Pyotr Tolstoy, has provided a detailed comment to the media on this shady story ... On September 10, he submitted protest to assembly's President Rik Daems, expressing his indignation at this usage of procedural tricks for promoting politicized decisions. He urged PACE leadership to provide official explanations," the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
