Opinion

The European Parliament will soon consider a draft resolution on relations with Belarus. In view of non-democratic character of the “parliamentary elections” in Belarus, the draft resolution doesn’t say about lifting the sanctions against the Belarusian regime.

After democratic candidates withdraw from the “election”, the whole world will see political bankruptcy of the Belarusian dictatorship. Zmitser Bandarenka, coordinator of the Charter’97, one of the leaders of the “European Belarus” civil campaign, thinks so.

The nature of the “election” and their result is quite clear today. The number of only 0.07% of democrats out of the total number of precinct commissions’ members vividly demonstrate that the regime is not going to lose control over the chief element of the elections: votes’ count. At the same time opposition representatives make about 40% of the total number of candidates to deputies, the leader of the civil campaign “European Belarus” Andrei Sannikov writes.

In reality, there are 1o more political prisoners left in Belarus.”Restriction of freedom” for persons on trial at “the Process of Fourteen” is a very strict measure of restrain. On August 20 due to pressure of the Belarusian opposition and international community political prisoners Syarhei Parsyukevich and Andrei Kim were released. Despite of the fact that accusations had been obviously falsified, and verdicts were unjust, like in the case of Alyaksandr Kazulin, they were released by a presidential decree of pardon, not by a decision of judiciary establishments.

After the explosion in Minsk, the regime uses this tragedy for arrests of activists of the democratic movement of Belarus instead of searching for criminals. An unprecedented campaign on pressing the opposition and the civil society is carried out today. Organising pressing by the financial police of the State Control Committee, the authorities try to discredit the leaders of the democratic forces, human rights activists, journalists, regional opposition activists.

“There isn’t much new in the position of Polish diplomacy. For a long time a line to recognition of the Lukashenka’s regime has been pursued confidentially, but today it was likely to be decided to avow it. If information about new Poland’s approaches towards the situation in Belarus is true, it can’t be named other than treachery of the Solidarity movement’s ideals,” Andrei Sannikov, international coordinator of Charter’97, one of the leaders of the “European Belarus” civil campaign, said.

Some websites have reported that “the “European Belarus” movement announced the decision to run in the elections.” We asked Andrei Sannikov, one of the leaders of the civil campaign “European Belarus”, to comment on the reports.

Officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Belarus have stated that the decision on the cost of Schengen visas for Belarusian citizens lies within the competence of the European Union now.

Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of France to Belarus Mireille Musso, who is a representative of the European Union in Belarus, has commented another series of arrests for participation in the rally organized by “European Belarus” members on May 1.

“It is strange that three years before the presidential election Lukashenka is speaking about some further new terms. It looks like he does not expect to endure till the end of this year at least,” told the international coordinator of the Cahrter’97 Andrei Sannikov, a member of the organizing committee of the civil campaign “European Belarus”, commenting on statements of Lukashenka to run for another presidential term.