Human rights activists remind Westerwelle and Sikorski they meet with dictator

European human rights activists demanded that the foreign ministers of Germany and Poland raise a range of questions in Minsk.

Amnesty International human rights watchdog calls on foreign minister of German Guido Westerwelle to urge the Belarusian authorities during his visit to Minsk to impose moratorium on the death penalty.

As Monika Lueke, general secretary of Amnesty International in Germany, told in an interview to DPA news agency, the German foreign minister should also urge Minsk to put an end to arrests of peaceful demonstrators and censorship in the media.

A number of European NGOs, BelarusWatch (Lithuania), Belarusian Human Rights House (Vilnius, Lithuania), Civic Belarus (the Czech Republic), Human Rights House Foundation (Norway), and Libereco – Partnership for Human Rights (Germany) have also called on the foreign ministers of Poland and Germany to demand the Belarusian authorities to release political prisoners Mikalai Autukhovich and Uladzimir Asipenka, repeal ‘political’ article 193-1 of the Criminal Code, carry out free and transparent elections and put an end to prosecution of journalists.

“We call upon representatives of the EU authorities to bear in mind that in Belarus regime’s opponents and independent journalists are still facing intimidation and persecution, the country still practices the death penalty and that freedoms of expression, association and assembly are routinely violated.

Taking into account that visits of senior EU politicians are successfully used by the Belarusian authorities as a sign of support to the incumbent president Alyaksandr Lukashenka ahead of the upcoming election, we ask to keep questions about democratic values of freedom and human dignity high up on the agenda during contacts with the official Minsk,” the statement says.

Westerwelle and his Polish counterpart Radoslaw Sikorski have been ordered by the EU to pay a visit to Belarus during the election campaign. The EU representatives plan to turn attention to the issues of free and fair elections during their meetings with Belarusian foreign minister Syarhei Martynau and president Alyaksandr Lukashenka.

German DPA reminds that that the previous “rigged presidential election in 2006 and suppression of opposition demonstrations” made the EU impose sanctions on Belarusian high-ranking officials, including Alyaksandr Lukashenka.