It has been started by the former chairman of the Supreme Council of Belarus at the conference “EU-Belarus: dialogue at the expense of human rights?” held in Sweden.

The former chairman of the Supreme Council of Belarus, the leader of the Belarusian Social Democratic Hramada Stanislau Shushkevich visited Stockholm on invitation of the Swedish initiative “Ostgruppen”. The politician has taken part in the conference “EU-Belarus: dialogue at the expense of human rights?” The Belarusian delegation included also Valeriya Krasovskaya, a daughter of Anatol Krasouski, a businessman and public leader abducted in Belarus, and a political refugee from Belarus, a public leader Andrei Abozau.

The seminar “EU-Belarus: dialogue at the expense of human rights?” was visited by Swedish politicians, public leaders, representatives of embassies of Poland, Lithuania, Russia, experts and journalists.

Conditions of the dialogue between the EU and Belarus were considered, and their following by the Belarusian authorities. Belarusian participants reminded the Swedish civil society about absence of progress in implementing condition for the country’s democratization by Lukashenka’s regime: there are still political prisoners incarcerated in Belarus, there is no freedom of expression, crackdown on opposition goes on; authorities refuse to liberalize the electoral legislation, cases of oppositionists’ abductions and murders are not investigated in the country.

“The main objective of the event is for Sweden to learn more about Belarus, so there was an avalanche of questions. I tried to answer them. I explained that changes in our country are taking place only in Lukashenka’s speeches, but as a matter of fact everything remains the same. If we would continue idle talk, there is a danger that it would be too late to make changes in the Electoral Code. The election is rather soon.

I have also noted that the Belarusian dictatorship has deep multi-layered defense today. It is too little to change one thing; the entire system should be changed. For instance, if the authorities would allow party members to become members of district election commissions, it won’t affect transparency of the elections. Crackdown on the parties continue, it is impossible to register a regional branch without headquarters, and to rent offices in provinces at market prices is unbearably expensive for parties today, and local authorities are hindering that. So the makeup of the commissions won’t change anything.

We have been also speaking about political prisoners, that they are still kept in Belarusian prisons. New prisoners simply replaced old ones. The Belarusian dictatorship cannot exist in a different way,” Stanislau Shushkevich said to charter97.org website.

Beside participation in the seminar, Belarusian participants visited the Foreign Ministry of Sweden, where a large meeting with Swedish diplomats was held. Among them were Jan Nyberg, Director of the Department for Eastern Europe and Central Asia (Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs), and his assistant Anna Hammarlund Blixt.

Stanislau Shushkevich told the ministry workers that Belarusian authorities haven’t held liberalization of the country promised to Europe. Valeriya Krasovskaya and Andrei Abozau reminded that for 10 years Belarusian authorities have been ignoring demands of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and other international structures to hold an open independent investigation of forcible abductions of the regime’s opponents, and do not stop politically motivated persecution.

“I was asked about my attitude towards the recent decision of the EU to extend moratorium on sanctions against Belarusian officials. I told that Europe should have a new strategy on Belarus. If sanctions are imposed and then lifted, there won’t be success. I always offer the US as an example. They have thought it over, and then imposed pinpoint economic sanctions, which had powerful influence. And Europe with its Brussels bureaucracy does not work thoughtfully. There should be a special representative or bureau on Belarus, otherwise officials are changed, and everything starts over again. Europe should give a great deal of thought to what they are doing,” Shushkevich said to charter97.org.

Charter`97