“Young Front” expects explanations from German ambassador
20- 22.10.2009, 15:54
An interview with Germany’s ambassador to Belarus Gebhardt Weiss was published on Deutsche Welle website on October 20.
To a question about a position of the EU on political prisoners, Mr Weiss said: “I must state that there are no internationally recognized political prisoners in the country as it was before August 2008. There are problems with the businessmen, who got severe punishment for expressing their opinion. In a certain sense, it is unusual for Europe. Amnesty International speaks about prisoners of conscience in this context.”
In this respect, “Young Front” issued a statement, noticing that documents of Amnesty International, Weiss refers to, define the notion “political prisoner”.
“Any prisoner whose case has a significant political element: whether the motivation of the prisoner's acts, the acts themselves, or the motivation of the authorities. This category embraces prisoners of conscience as well as people who resort to criminal violence for a political motive.”
“We remind that Amnesty International recognized 11 young Belarusians, participants of the notorious Case of 14, including Artsyom Dubski, prisoners of conscience in May 2009. According to international standards, there are at least 11 political prisoners in Belarus. Some of them had to live abroad having no opportunity to return home without a possible arrest or imprisonment on political motives,” the “Young Front” statement says.
In this regard, the “Young Front” asks Mr Weiss:
1) To explain in public his statement on absence of political prisoners in the country and give international documents, he referred to in his conclusion.
2) To explain in public the remark: “What to Artsyom Dubski, it took me a lot of time to make a conclusion. We should take into account that he didn’t observe the rules of serving punishment for some time. So, it’s better to think about progress.”
Doest it mean that the Germany’s ambassador openly admit the issue of political prisoner is secondary and doesn’t need urgent solving in the “dialogue” between the European Union and the authorities of Belarus?
