In a joint statement, they said that illegal crossings of the EU’s external border were deliberately putting at risk and endangering the lives of third-country nationals, the Polish state news agency reported.
The document, which was read out in New York at a session of the UN Assembly’s Third Committee on social and humanitarian affairs and human rights, also expressed deep concern over Minsk’s failure to cooperate with international human rights mechanisms and "the total impunity" of those responsible for violating human rights.
The signatory countries, which also included Australia, Japan, Canada and South Korea, condemned the regime of Belarus's strongman leader, Alexander Lukashenko, for its crackdown on political opponents, the media, ethnic minorities and civil society groups, as well as for the forced diversion of a Ryanair jet and an attempt to force sprinter Krystsina Tsimanouskaya to fly home early from the Tokyo Olympics, according to officials.
During the debate, the UN’s special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Belarus, Anais Marin, presented a report on abuses of women’s rights by the regime, the Polish news agency reported.
Meanwhile, Poland’s ambassador to the UN, Krzysztof Szczerski, accused Minsk of “using methods employed by criminal organisations” and of exploiting migrants “as a weapon in its struggle against the West.”
He added that “the Belarusian hybrid operation is the first migrant crisis in modern Europe which has been deliberately planned, engineered and organised by a third country, by means and methods previously typical only of criminal organisations.”
Szczerski told PAP the declaration had been adopted thanks to the efforts of Polish diplomats and that democratic nations around the globe were beginning to realise and “strongly condemn the nature of the actions of the Belarusian regime."
The EU and the countries of the Baltic region issued their own separate declarations, also deploring Minsk, the Polish news agency reported.
(pm/gs)
Source: PAP, eeas.europa.eu