Election Belarusian democratic opposition appeals to the EU

In a joint proclamation, signed by ten organizations, the democratic opposition in Belarus now urges the EU not to negotiate on anything with the regime in Minsk other than the immediate release of all political prisoners, including the four presidential candidates who are still imprisoned and threatened with long-term prison sentences.

Published on balticworlds.com on January 7, 2011

“We know nothing about the condition of my father. Last week he lost consciousness in the KGB prison because of his high blood pressure.

“We do not know which doctors are taking care of him and we do not know how is being treated.

“The doctor who previously took care of him has no access to him.

“My father has had a stroke before, and our doctor told us that his condition can become grave if he does not get the right care.”

These are the words of Vladimir Nyaklyay’s daughter, Eva Nyaklyayeva, at a news conference in Warsaw on Wednesday.

Alyaksandr Kazulin, one of the democratic opposition candidates in the presidential election in 2006, during which he was beaten, imprisoned, and sentenced to a multi-year prison sentence, said that no information is available on the health status of the other presidential candidates currently imprisoned:

“We know that Andrey Sannikov was severely beaten when he was taken on the evening of December 19. His wife, the well-known journalist Iryna Khalip, is also in prison right now. The state is threatening to place their three-year-old son, currently with Iryna’s mother, in an orphanage.”

“What is now under way in Belarus is state terrorism, organized by President Lukashenka”, said democratically elected former head of state of Belarus, Stanislau Shushkevich.

In a joint proclamation, signed by ten organizations, the democratic opposition in Belarus now urges the EU not to negotiate on anything with the regime in Minsk other than the immediate release of all political prisoners, including the four presidential candidates who are still imprisoned and threatened with long-term prison sentences.

“Lukashenka cannot be recognized as a legally elected president”, the letter to the EU states. If the prisoners are not released immediately, the EU should “use all possible means, diplomatic, political, and economic, in order to exert pressure on the Belarusian government”, says the statement.

Peter Johnsson