BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

30/01/2008

Youth Council pushes for democracy in Belarus

The Nordic Youth Council calls on the Nordic Council to exert pressure for democratic reforms in Belarus. The youth politicians are also calling for discrimination against the disabled and ethnic minorities to be put on the Nordic agenda.

"Belarus is a forgotten dictatorship," says the Danish President of the Nordic Youth Council, Lisbeth Sejer Gotzsche. Following the meeting of the Presidium on Tuesday, the NYC requested that the Nordic Council focus on Belarusian human rights and freedom of speech. This refers, amongst other things, to an incident three weeks ago when the Nordic Youth Council attended a meeting in Minsk and witnessed ten Belarusian young people being arrested and three of them remanded in custody because they took part in a demonstration.

At their meeting on Tuesday the Presidium called for the Nordic Council to place equality and discrimination on the Nordic agenda, with particular focus on ethnic and sexual minorities as well as the disabled. "We must treat people as resources and not as a burden," says Gotzsche.

The Nordic attitude is against discrimination, says the President of the NYC. She believes that the difficultly lies in implementing it and that the State should lead by example in regard to employing disabled people and ethnic minorities.

Source:

http://www.norden.org/webb/news/news.asp?id=7608&lang=6