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Belarusian rights groups based abroad slam proposal to shorten EU`s blacklist

 

A number of Belarusian human rights groups abroad have attacked the Brussels-based Office for a Democratic Belarus for its proposal that the EU should shorten its list of Belarusians subject to travel bans and asset freezes for their role in the government’s crackdown on civil society and opposition activists.

The EU should, on the contrary, tighten its sanctions against the Lukashenka regime, the groups said in a statement issued on Friday.

It is “inadmissible to whitewash the dictator’s henchmen who have been recognized as such by the inclusion in the EU’s blacklist,” they stressed.

The previous day, the Office for a Democratic Belarus, more precisely its head, Volha Stuzhynskaya, came out with a scandalous proposal to shorten the EU’s blacklist by excluding university rectors, journalists and persons who no longer serve in the positions in which they allegedly took part in the persecution of government opponents. Some opposition activists immediately slammed the proposal, saying that Ms. Stuzhynskaya actually wanted just one person, businessman Uladzimir Peftsiyew, to be removed from the blacklist in exchange for some favors from him, monetary or otherwise, and that the other 24 persons whom she proposed for exclusion from the blacklist were just needed to disguise her true purpose.

The foreign-based Belarusian rights organizations decried the proposal as irresponsible and immoral.

Ms. Stuzhynskaya’s arguments for the removal of the university rectors “do not hold water,” they said. “The people appointed by the dictator to the positions are responsible for the politically-motivated expulsion of students, pressure to compel them to vote early, direct and indirect bans on students` participation in social and political activities and other forms of pressure on them.”

The reasoning behind Ms. Stuzhynskaya lobbying for the interests of Mr. Peftsiyew and questioning the EU’s criteria for designating Belarusians is beyond any comprehension, they said. “Ms. Stuzhynskaya should rather meditate on criteria used for putting Belarusian pro-democratic activists in prisons that are financed by funds earned for the regime by, among others, Peftsiyew.”

The rights organizations suggested that the EU should extend the blacklist by placing on it those responsible for the sentencing of prominent human rights activist Ales Byalyatski, “the torture and humiliating treatment” of former presidential candidates Andrey Sannikaw and Mikalay Statkevich, as well as other political prisoners, including Dzmitry Bandarenka, Zmitser Dashkevich, Eduard Lobaw, Syarhey Kavalenka and Mikalay Awtukhovich.

The EU should, in particular, blacklist officials of Correctional Institution No. 4 in Mahilyow, the Vitsba 3 prison near Vitsyebsk and Correctional Institution No. 2 in Babruysk for the mistreatment of Mr. Sannikaw, along with “tycoons linked to the regime,” the groups said.

They also called on the EU to introduce smart economic sanctions against the Lukashenka regime.

The signatories include the Civil and Political Office of Belarus in Lithuania, Society of Belarusian Culture in Lithuania, Belarusian House in Warsaw, Lviv-based Belarusian Center in Ukraine, Office of Belarusian Political Emigration in Belgium, UK-registered Free Belarus Now, US-based We Remember Foundation, Coordination Center for Belarusian Civil Society in Riga (Latvia) and Ukrainian-registered Chernobyl Union of Belarus. // BelaPAN