Peter Stastny, a hockey legend, National Hockey League Hall of Famer and Member of European Parliament and Marek Migalski, Member of the European Parliament started the international campaign for suspension of the World Hockey Championship in Belarus in 2014.

International Hockey Federation should realize that such barbaric behavior is still practiced in Europe is deeply disturbing, says the petition.

Often known as the “last dictatorship of Europe,” the Lukashenko regime has earned international notoriety and scorn for its appalling human and political rights record.

Lukashenko and his security services, still called the KGB, have ruthlessly ruled Belarus for almost twenty years. Under his reign, elections have been consistently unfair and undemocratic; politically motivated arrests and detentions are common; the Belarusian judiciary has been stripped of its independence; beatings, poor treatment, and disease are widespread in prisons (where detainees lack access to food, proper clothing, and medical treatment); and the public’s basic freedoms of press, speech, assembly, association, and religion are severely restricted.