Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what steps he has taken to help (a) establish an independent international body for the in-depth investigation of human rights violations in the context of the recent Belarusian presidential elections and (b) bring perpetrators of torture and inhuman treatment among the Belarusian security forces and their responsible superiors to justice.

The UK is deeply concerned by the torture and mistreatment of hundreds of protestors and other members of civil society, following the fraudulent elections in Belarus. We were the driving force behind the invocation of the Moscow Mechanism in the OSCE, triggering an independent investigation by Professor Wolfgang Benedek in to the election and the brutal suppression that followed. We have welcomed the findings and recommendations in Professor Benedek's report, including his call for the establishment of an independent international body for the in-depth investigation of human rights violations.

We are working closely with international partners and NGOs to this end. In September, the UK also co-sponsored an Urgent Debate on Belarus at the UN Human Rights Council which mandated the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to provide a comprehensive report on human rights violations in Belarus. The report is due in March.