Iryna Bogdanova: We are struggling for freedom, but we need help

The sister of presidential candidate Andrei Sannikov took the floor at the OSCE PA winter meeting.

Security problems are in the focus of attention at the 11th meeting of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly that began yesterday in Vienna. Around 250 parliamentarians from over 50 OSCE member states take part in the meeting.

As charter97.org learned, the meeting started with a sitting of the General Committee on Democracy, Human Rights and Humanitarian Questions with participation of former UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Manfred Nowak and Bill Browder of Hermitage Capital Management. The Committee also heard Eugenia Tymoshenko, a daughter of Ukrainian former PM Yulia Tymoshenko, and Iryna Bogdanova, the sister of imprisoned Belarusian presidential candidate Andrei Sannikov.

Bogdanova said in her representation thousands of people in Belarus were being thrown into prison for their political views. She gave detailed information about her brother, presidential candidate Andrei Sannikov, and talked about tortures of political prisoners in the KGB jail and confinement conditions in penitentiaries and transit prisons.

Bogdanova called on European politicians to help Belarusians in their struggle against the dictatorship. According to her, targeted economic sanctions against the authorities of Belarus could be the main help.

“It was rather unprecedented: the OSCE has never focused on particular situations. But due to Matteo Mecacci, the chair of the OSCE PA Committee on Human Rights, Yulia Tymoshenko's daughter and I have an opportunity to give more details on the situation of our relatives. The siltation in Belarus was regarded as the most alarming one at the meeting and received the primary attention.

Talking about the case against Andrei Sannikov, I noted: do not forget there are 17 political prisoners in Belarus, but unofficially, there are thousands of them. If a presidential candidate has faced such treatment, what do others meet? I said about confinement conditions in remand jails and prisons, about ongoing tortures. Andrei has no access to a lawyer, he is forbidden to send letters and phone home.

I noted at the end neither I nor the people of Belarus will stop our fight for freedom, but we need help. With your help, we will need less time to achieve the result. We watch the dictatorships collapsing one after another. Let's combine our efforts. Imposing targeted economic sanctions against the Belarusian dictatorship, on oil products and potash fertilizers supplies, are important today as never before,” Iryna Bogdanova told charter97.org in an interview.

Andrei Sannikov's sister also met with Riccardo Migliori, the head of the Italian Delegation to the OSCE PA; Christopher Smith, a US congressman and co-chair of the US Helsinki Commission; Matteo Mecacci, the chair of the OSCE PA Chair of the Commitee on Human Rights; Ian Kelly, the US Ambassador to the OSCE; Uta Zapf, the head of the OSCE PA working group on Belarus and others.

Official representatives of Belarus refused to take part in the Committee meeting. According to them, there are no political prisoners in the country.

However, they appeared at a plenary meeting: deputy chair of the “house of representatives” of the “national assembly” of Belarus Viktar Huminski said Andrei Sannikov's case was under “close attention of the General Prosecutor's Office”. The Belarusian MP demonstrated his complete ignorance: he said Andrei Sannikov was accused of organizing a “military coup”.