Sannikov and Shushkevich meet with Polish Foreign Minister

Radoslaw Sikorski sent words of support to Iryna Khalip, who will be tried tomorrow in Minsk.

The meeting took place in the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Warsaw on July 17. Leader of the civil campaign European Belarus Andrei Sannikov, first head of independent Belarus Stanislau Shushkevich and Jan Malicki, the director of the Centre for East European Studies at the University of Warsaw and head of the Kalinowski Scholarship Programme, took part in the event. They discussed the situation in our country with Radoslaw Sikorski.

“The number of political prisoners in Belarus is growing in spite of the EU's steps on establishing contacts with the regime. We expressed our deep concern about the issue. We informed about the sentence to Andrei Haidukou for attempted spying, criminal cases against Vasily Parfiankou, Uladzimir Yaromenak and Tatsiana Zialko. The dictatorship wants Europe to accept the situation when the West holds talks with the dictator amid ongoing human rights violations in our country,” Andrei Sannikov says about the meeting.

A topic of the relations between Minks and Brussels was raised.

“Radoslaw Sikorski noted that Poland was keeping a close eye on the situation and didn't notice any improvements, though there are attempts to influence the human rights situation in Belarus ahead of the Eastern Partnership Summit in Vilnius. Participation of the Belarusian authorities in the Vilnius Summit is still open to question, as I understood. The minister didn't rule out a possibility that the EU could return to a tougher policy if the situation in Belarus continued to deteriorate.

“We thanked Poland and Radoslaw Sikorski for the help in educational programmes for Belarusians and Warsaw's initiative to open the European Endowment for Democracy. We discussed possible steps by the European Union and possible developments in Belarus. Radoslaw Sikorski stressed that the EU's demand to release and rehabilitate political prisoners remains unchanged. Europe is not going to give up its principles. The minister sent words of support to Iryna Khalip and said Europe would keep a close eye tomorrow's trial,” Andrei Sannikov said.