Christos Pourgourides refused entry to Belarus

Christos Pourgourides, who is preparing a report on Belarus for the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), wasn’t able to visit Minsk to prepare a report for PACE.

A report on abuse of the criminal justice system in Belarus will be presented to the attention of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. Christos Pourgourides told in the interview to Radio Svaboda he wasn’t able to visit Minsk and have a conversation with representatives of the authorities, unlike the previous time when he was preparing the report on Belarus.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Belarus refused to invite him to the country, though the Secretariat of the CE asked for it. That is why Christos Pourgourides gathered information about abuse of the criminal justice system in Belarus from available to him sources.

He summarised the main ideas of his report:

“The most important message of this report is that the regime in Minsk should stop abusing of criminal justice system in political purposes.”

Mr Pourgourides learnt the situation and came to a conclusion that PACE resolutions can improve the situation:

“Actually, I don’t hope that Belarusian regime will change its policy right tomorrow. I understand, it is a phased process and I hope we will manage to make the Belarusian regime change its policy.”