Christos Pourgourides, author of report on opposition leaders killing, not allowed in Belarus

Christos Pourgourides was a PACE special rapporteur on Belarus and investigated disappearances of the opposition politicians.

Christos Pourgourides, member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, invited for the Belarusian European Forum, can’t arrive in Belarus. Andrei Bushyla, head of the Belarusian mission at the Council of Europe, said at a meeting with PACE representatives that the Belarusian authorities wouldn’t allow Pourgourides to enter Belarus, the “For Freedom” movement informs.

The representative of the Belarusian government let know the famous Cyprian MP wouldn’t get a visa in the Belarus’s Consulate in Paris or at a Minsk airport.

Christos Pourgourides was a special rapporteur on Belarus in 2004. He investigated disappearances of the opposition politicians. The Cyprian MP is the First Vice-Chairperson of PACE Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights.

As www.charter97.org has already reported, the special rapporteur of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe carried out an independent investigation of disappearances of Yury Zakharanka, Viktar Hanchar, Anatol Krasouski and Zmitser Zavadski and said in his report “Disappeared Persons in Belarus” that Belarusian high-ranking officials were involved in forceful disappearances in Belarus.

The PACE adopted a resolution calling on Belarus to interrogate the suspected persons, mentioned in the report, and carry out an open investigation of the disappearances. The Belarusian authorities continue to ignore the PACE requirements. There’s no information about the destiny of the forcefully disappeared oppositionists.

In 1999–2000, Viktar Hanchar, the first vice speaker of the 13th Supreme Council of Belarus and head of the Central Electoral Commission; businessman and public figure Anatol Krasouski; former interior minister and opposition politician Yury Zakharanka; ORT TV channel camera operator Zmitser Zavadski disappeared in Belarus.

The international community calls to find out further fate of the disappeared Belarusian oppositionists. Resolutions of UN Human Rights Commission, Parliamentary Assemblies of the Council of Europe and the OSCE urge to reveal the truth about the disappearances.

A number of Belarusian high-ranking officials, in particular former minister of internal affaires Uladzimir Navumau, former head of the president’s administration Viktar Sheiman, former minister of internal affaires Yury Sivakou, and former commander of special task squad Dzmitry Paulichenka are banned from entering the EU countries and the US, because they are suspected of involvement in kidnapping of the oppositionists.