Strasbourg, 03/07/2014 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 2 July, the Belarusian human rights campaigner and leader of the Viasna Center, Ales Bialiatski, called on the European Union to maintain pressure on Belarus so that all political prisoners in his country might be released. “I feel I'm a messenger. I absolutely have to convince people here not to drop the pressure, to continue to put pressure on for the release of all the political prisoners in Belarus”, Bialiatski told EUROPE when he was at the European Parliament in Strasbourg. Bialiatski was himself released from prison on 21 June - 20 months before the date that was planned and after over 1,000 days in detention. He believed that the EU, and also the support of Belarusian and international civil society, had helped his early release.
As well as pressure for political prisoners, Bialiatski underlined that the EU should support civil society and the independent press who were working in “extremely difficult” conditions. He also called on the EU to open up more to the Belarusian people - for example, through visas at a “reasonable price” so that Belarusians might travel in the EU. “It is extremely important that the messages sent by the EU are sufficiently incisive so that the Belarusian people choose to move towards European values rather than, let's say, towards the influences of the East”, Bialiatski stated.
Questioned about the need for increased sanctions on his country, Bialiatski said that it was “clear that as long as there are political prisoners, sanctions should not be lifted or eased”. He called for his country to be very carefully monitored and, “if the situation changes, perhaps oit would be right to strengthen them or do something else”.
Bialiatski, who will continue his human rights fight, stated that the EU's policy had a “really big influence on Belarus at the political level, and also in civil society”.
Patronage of political prisoners. Petras Austrevicius MEP (Lithuania) and Hans Van Baalen MEP (Netherlands) have called on their counterparts and the Parliament's political groups to “adopt a political patronage for the humanitarian situation, legal rights and liberties of a political prisoner in Belarus”. “A symbolic gesture of this nature would go a long way to maintaining awareness of the destructive nature that the Lukashenko regime has on civil society in Belarus”, they say in a press release, underlining that political patronage would also offer hope and lift the morale of the families and those close to the detained campaigners who often find themselves under pressure from the regime.
After a meeting with Bialiatski, Commissioner for Enlargement and European Neighbourhood Policy Stefan Füle noted that any positive change in EU relations with the Belarusian authorities depended on the improvement of human rights in Belarus and on “the unconditional release and rehabilitation of all political prisoners” (our translation throughout). (CG)