(ANSA-AFP) - GENEVE, DEC 4 - The human rights situation in crisis-wracked Belarus is still deteriorating, UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet said Friday, spotlighting mass arrests, including of journalists, and numerous allegations of torture.

"I regret to report that since the (UN human rights) council's urgent debate on Belarus in September, there has been no improvement in the human rights situation in the country," she told the council. "On the contrary, recent weeks have seen continued deterioration, particularly with respect to the right of peaceful assembly," she said, pointing out that hundreds of demonstrators continued to be arrested each week. Since an August election, Belarus has been gripped by massive protests that erupted after Alexander Lukashenko, 66, secured a sixth term as president of the ex-Soviet republic. The opposition charges that the election was rigged and political novice Svetlana Tikhanovskaya -- who ran against Lukashenko in the place of her jailed husband -- was the true winner of the polls.

(ANSA-AFP).