MEP Anna Fotyga: Protecting Palina Sharenda-Panasiuk And Mikalai Statkevich Is Free World’s Top Priority

EU sanctions against Lukashenka should be tightened and implemented faster.

MEP Anna Fotyga, former Polish Foreign Minister, called on the entire free world to respond to the unbearable conditions in which political prisoners of the European Belarus Civil Campaign Palina Sharenda-Panasiuk and Belarusian opposition leader Mikalai Statkevich are being held.

“I would like to thank Maryna Adamovich and Andrei Sharanda, whose relatives are victims of the Lukashenka regime, for today's conversation. I remember very well the cruelty of martial law in Poland, the communist crimes and the suffering of families. But also the courage of millions of heroes. Belarusians are following the same path now.

Today I’d like to recall the dramatic situation of the prominent opposition leader Mikalai Statkevich, who is in need of urgent medical care and is being held in a maximum security prison.

Palina Sharenda-Panasiuk is also a symbol of the Belarusian resistance and a victim of the regime's brutality.

Their protection should be the top priority of the free world,” the MEP said.

Previously, Anna Fotyga gave an interview to Polskie Radio and reacted to the situation with political prisoners in Belarus.

“EU sanctions against Belarus should be tightened and introduced faster,” said Anna Fotyga. The politician believes that pressure should be complex and from all possible sides — not only for the complicity of the Lukashenka regime in the war against Ukraine unleashed by Russia, but also for the inhuman repressions against civil society in Belarus itself.

Recall, Editor-in-Chief of Charter97.org Natallia Radzina as well as Maryna Adamovich, the wife of Mikalai Statkevich, and Andrei Sharenda, the husband of Palina Sharenda-Panasiuk, held a number of bilateral meetings with MEPs and EU diplomats in Brussels.