BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS
DATE:
10/03/2010
Parliament warns Minsk on human rights
By Joanna Sopinska
The European Parliament warned, on 10 March, President Alexander Lukashenko's regime that "further violations of human rights and the rule of law in Belarus may lead to the revision of the EU's position towards Belarus, including reinstatement of the sanctions". In a joint resolution on the situation of civil society and national minorities in Belarus, adopted at the 10 March plenary session in Strasbourg, MEPs called on Lukashenko's regime to immediately release political activists and prisoners of conscience as well as to withdraw restrictive measures against civil society campaigners and political parties.
The warning is a direct reaction to the recent series of repressions against civil society in Belarus, namely the activists of the Union of Poles in Belarus (ZPB), an independent organisation representing some 400,000 minority Poles living in the country. The Parliament "expresses its grave concern at the recent human rights violations in the Republic of Belarus against members of civil society, especially members of the Union of Poles, and declares its solidarity with citizens unable to enjoy their full civil rights," reads the resolution tabled by Elmar Brok (EPP, Germany) Jose Ignacio Salafranca (EPP, Spain), Andrzej Grzyb (EPP, Poland), Jacek Protasiewicz (EPP, Poland) and Jacek Saryusz-Wolski (EPP, Poland).
On 15 February, Belarusian police arrested for five days the leader of the ZPB, Angelika Borys, along with some 40 other activists on their way to trial concerning the House of Poles in Ivyanets, in the West of the country.
The resolution, mainly based on the findings of a special EP fact-finding mission to Belarus on 25-27 February, underlines that "the discrimination of the Union of Poles led by Angelika Borys as the largest NGO operating in Belarus is symptomatic of the general treatment of the civil society and the democratic opposition in Belarus".
MEPs made clear that further deepening of relations between the EU and Belarus, which began last year, would continue only if Lukashenko's regime commits itself to "real changes in the areas of freedom, democracy, rule of law and respect for human rights".
"Strict conditionality is a rule that must govern future EU-Belarus relations," said Saryusz-Wolski, head of the Polish delegation of the EPP group.
Until last year, EU-Belarus relations had been in a limbo following the undemocratic parliamentary elections of November 2008. In 2009, after the Georgia-Russia war in August, the EU changed its policy towards Minsk into a 'conditional engagement'. The EU has suspended a visa ban on Belarusian leaders, admitted the country into its Eastern Partnership project and offered tentative talks on further assistance in response to assurances from Minsk to allow some democratic reforms. The EU has also embarked on negotiations with Belarus on a contractual agreement, with the aim of concluding them by the end of this year.
Source:
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