Mr President,

I have the honour to deliver this statement on behalf of the Lublin Triangle States – Lithuania, Ukraine and my own country - Poland.

Please allow me to commend the Working Group for its indispensable engagement in the interest of persons deprived of their liberty without a lawful basis. We appreciate the latest report of the Group, although we conclude with deep concern that arbitrary detention is still being utilized by many governments as one of preferred tools of repression and intimidation.

Our countries unequivocally condemn arbitrary detention anywhere in the world. In our immediate neighbourhood, we deplore systematic practice of arrests on trumped-up charges in sham trials and imprisonment of dissidents in Belarus and the Russian Federation as well as detaining civilians in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine. We note that vague and overly broad laws are often being used to create a pretext for detainment, and we denounce mistreatment and torture of detainees.

Our countries firmly stand by the conviction that the right to personal liberty demands that no person should be subject to arbitrary detention. We welcome the release of 45 individuals subjected to the Group’s opinions and we call on all States to cooperate with the Group.

Madame Chair-Rapporteur, 

What measures should the internationa community take to effectively pressure governments that regularly use incarceration as a way to quell dissent, to consider alternatives to pretrial detention?