Lukashenka deceived Javier Solana

Human rights activists from the countries of the European Union are still denied Belarusian visas and denied entry in the country.

Back in February, after the visit of the head of the European Commission and the EU High Representative of the Common Foreign and Security Policy Javier Solana, Alyaksandr Lukashenka stated that the movement of Belarus and the EU towards each other would speed up, and relations improve. And at the meeting with the EU High Representative, the Belarusian leader underlined his readiness to establish close relations and trust-based relations with the European Union.

At the recent meeting with the European Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner the Belarusian leader made the same statements about the sincere desire of Belarus to further good relations with the European Union.

However, the liberalisation announced by the authorities does not affect the control over the society.

As informed by the European Radio for Belarus, representatives of the structures that cooperate with Belarusian public associations are still denied visas. A lawyer of the human rights centre “Viasna” Valyantsin Stefanovich has informed that the General Secretary for the Swedish Helsinki Committee Robert Hårdh, could not get a visa to our country. Not long ago a member of the committee Joanna Kurosz was denied visa as well. She is denied visa for the third time, while only thins year she applied for visa twice.

“This policy is continued without any changes. At least, I know that our partners are still not given Belarusian visas, and they are not given visas for a rather long time. It is a rather notional thaw, it may seem a thaw from a long distance, but it is very factitious here inside. It could be said that the number of repressions has been reduced, but one cannot say that the control over the society has been reduced, or some system-level changes have taken place. The KGB stays at its place, the KGB works,” the human rights activist says.

Ales Byalatski, the head of the human rights centre “Viasna”, added that visas are not issued to those who take an active stand on the issues of the society. According to the human rights activist, the Belarusian authorities find that dangerous for themselves.

“It’s true, foreigners are not allowed entering the country, this practice continued till the latest time. Recently a Swedish citizen Martin Ugla was denied a visa. He was cooperating with the human rights centre “Viasna” for many years. As we suppose, it is related to his activities, which is found dangerous by the Belarusian authorities,” Byalatski said.

A public activist Yury Chavusau told that a number of foreign citizens couldn’t get into Belarus in spring. All of them were invited for the Assembly of non-governmental associations and initiatives. Even those who previously visited Belarus without problems were blacklisted, including a representative of the Dutch Embassy in Warsaw Lukasz Byrski. As before, those persons who had been put on the lists of persons banned from Belarus, are denied visas, for instance, David Hamilton from the National Democracy Institute in Kyiv.

Meanwhile, the Foreign Ministry declines to comment on who and on what reasons are banned from entering Belarus.