USA Still Use Double Standard Policy Concerning Belarus

The USA still make use of the double standard policy concerning Belarus, stated deputy head of the Foreign Ministry Alexander Sychev at the press conference in the Foreign Ministry on Thursday.

"We believe that the Belarusian part of the report of the US State Department regarding the state of human rights in 2001 is inaccurate and has much false information", noted deputy Foreign Minister.

According to Mr. Sychev, the comment of the Belarusian Foreign Ministry was handed over to US ambassador to Belarus Michael Kozack and to the US State Department - via Belarusian embassy in Washington". "We hope our comment will help make the next report more objective", said Mr. Sychev.

The comment states that when preparing the Belarusian part of the report concerning human rights in Belarus in 2001 the "US State Department did not manage to avoid prejudice in assessing the social and political situation in Belarus and used unverified or made-up statements".

The statement of the Foreign Ministry reads, the report is based on information aired by Belarusian law enforcers and by the opposition. However, many of the sources are mentioned as "anonymous".

Meanwhile, the official data was not used as a source of information. The Foreign Ministry of Belarus underlines, "the U.S. State Department uses outdated facts and figures and sometimes invalid documents year to year".

The authors of the comment believe, "that is accounted for by the fact that those who wrote the report did not check or care to check the actual information". As far as Belarus' efforts towards human rights and freedoms are concerned, they are totally omitted in the report.

"All of that forces Belarus to say once again that the USA have double standards in the field of human rights regarding Belarus and attach political features to the issue".

Belarus "has always stressed and stresses once again its preparedness to accept constructive fair criticism and openness to a constructive, just dialogue of mutual interest", the document emphasises.