Sannikov and Shushkevich meet with EP President

Europe will review its policy towards the dictatorial regime of Lukashenka.

Leader of European Belarus civil campaign Andrei Sannikov and former chairman of the Supreme Council, head of the Belarusian Social Democratic Hramada Stanislau Shushkevich had a meeting with President of the European Parliament Jerzy Buzek. The meeting in Warsaw took twice as long as planned – more than an hour.

“As EP President Jerzy Buzek emphasized the MEPs pay much attention to the situation in Belarus understanding that independence and democracy are basic values for the Belarusians. The European Parliament and European Union will again and again turn to the Belarusian issues ahead of the presidential elections. In particular, the EU is to review its policy towards Belarus in autumn. Despite all promises of dictator Lukashenka, European politicians don’t notice positive changes in Belarus. Moreover, MEPS and European officials were shocked by the local council “elections”, which, they hoped, could show some progress. Europe had a hope that Lukashenka would try to improve the reputation of his regime,” Andrei Sannikov said after the meeting.

The Belarusian politicians turned the EP President’s attention to the situation with political prisoners and the decree on Internet censorship taking effect on July 1.

“We drew attention of the EP president to the case of political prisoner Mikalai Autukhovich that is another demonstration that the Belarusian dictator plays with Europe. The authorities have assured Europe that they are criminals whose guilt will be proven, but accusation of terrorist activity fell to pieces at the open trial. Today Europe should help these people, Autukhovich, Asipenka, Kazlou, to gain release as soon as possible.

We also spoke about the decree on the Internet coming into effect on July 1, which has been worked out to eliminate the remaining independent sources of information ahead of the elections. The law is adopted and punitive bodies are created to observe it in order to pursue this aim.

We also discussed the situation with nominating candidates for the presidential elections and chances for democracy to win. We underlined we have real chances, but we shouldn’t hope the dictatorial system will allow to carry out honest elections,” the European Belarus leader noted.

The first head of independent Belarus Stanislau Shushkevich also said he was satisfied with the meeting with Jerzy Buzek.

“I was pleased to hear the Mr Buzek was concerned about the state of the Belarusian language and education in Belarusian not only in Belarus, but also abroad. In particular, he was surprised to hear that Belarusian is used less and less often as a language of instruction in Belarusian Humanities University.

It was important to discuss the situation in Belarus with the EP president, explain many things to him. I was invited to the meeting together with Andrei Sannikov, the strongest presidential candidate counting on victory. It means the European Parliament already knows that,” Stanislau Shushkevich noted.