18/07/2006 (Agence Europe) - The CFSP High Representative Javier Solana has expressed his profound concern at the five and a half year sentence meted out to Aleksander Kozulin, former president candidate in Belarus, for “hooliganism”, indicated Mr Solana's spokesperson, Cristina Gallach. Mr Solana said that this was clearly a political sentence and pointed out that Mr Kozulin had been arrested during a peaceful demonstration. Mr Solana called for Kozulin and all other political prisoners to be released and reiterated that the EU is “open to developing relations with Belarus but that this requires concrete steps towards democratisation and respect for human rights”.