Head of the International Observation Mission on the Human Rights Situation in Belarus has become a member of the Russian Presidential Council on Civil Society Development and Human Rights

On November 12th Vladimir Putin signed the decree on “Changes in the composition of the Presidential Council on Civil Society Development and Human Rights”. According to it 39 new members have been included in the Presidential Council, among them Andrey Yurov – Head of the International Observation Mission on the Human Rights Situation in Belarus.

The new members of the Presidential Council were chosen as a result of the so-called “public consultations” held in the form of Internet voting in 13 nominations. Andrey Yurov was selected in the nomination “Human rights in the post-Soviet area”.

In the opinion of the human rights activist, his inclusion into the Presidential Council could be generally regarded as supporting the activities of human rights defenders from the CIS in Belarus and the OSCE region in general.

“The issues of human rights in the neighboring states have become more significant for the current Russian leadership. There are many signals about that including this nomination, which was introduced for the first time”, – Mr. Yurov noticed.

Mr. Yurov closely works in the field of human rights in the OSCE region. Particularly, he participated in the human rights missions to Kyrgyzstan in 2010 due to the inter-ethnic conflict and to Georgia in 2008 due to the Georgian – Ossetian conflict. Since December 24th, 2010 the human rights defender has been serving as the Head of the International Observation Mission on the Human Rights Situation in Belarus, created due to the massive human rights violations after the presidential elections in this country.

Since that time the Mission in Belarus has provided objective and balanced information on the situation in Belarus to various organizations – not only the Western ones, but also those of the CIS countries. As a result of this activity Andrey Yurov has been temporarily banned entry to Belarus.

Andrey Yurov is a famous international human rights activist, philosopher, co-author of the conception of “humanitarian antifascism / human integrity”.

Official representation: honorary president of the Youth Human Rights Movement (YHRM), head of the International Observation Mission, member of the Supervisory Board of the Committee on International Control over the Human Rights Situation in Belarus, director for development of the Moscow Helsinki Group, expert of the Council of Europe, member of the Expert Council of the Russian Federal Ombudsman for Human Rights, member of the Council of the International Civic Initiative for the OSCE, member of the Supervisory Board of the Eurasia IDEA Network.

Andrey Yurov in social networks: http://twitter.com/andrey_yurov.