The European Union threatens Minsk with sanctions for the arrest of a “Russian agent” in Belarus
EU leaders and members of the European Parliament have demanded that the Belarusian authorities release blogger Sergei Tikhanovsky and nationalist politician Nikolai Statkevich, who were detained yesterday, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
At first glance, there is nothing surprising: the West has always supported oppositionists in the post-Soviet space. But the paradox is that Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said the day before that Tikhanovsky, who is calling on the people for peaceful protest, receives funding from Russia.
In the European Parliament, the permanent rapporteur on Belarus, Petras Auštrevičius, and the chairman of the delegation for relations with Belarus, Robert Biedron, demanded the release of the activists. Their statement was published on the website of the EU representative body.
They believe that the Belarusian authorities are making attempts to “prevent presidential candidates from collecting the number of signatures required for nomination” and threaten, if arrests continue, to achieve “a review of the European Union’s policy towards Belarus, including the imposition of sanctions against officials responsible for these actions.”
Press Secretary of the European External Action Service Peter Stano, in an interview with the opposition agency BelaPAN, also expressed concern about the human rights situation in Belarus. He said the EU calls for inviting the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) to observe the elections. Earlier, the Belarusian Central Election Commission reported that the decision on foreign observers would be made depending on the epidemiological situation.
Alexander Lukashenko listed Tikhanovsky as an “agent of Moscow” after the blogger gave an interview to the Russian Kommersant. The Belarusian president believes that, by doing so, the publication demonstrated “whose not even ears, but whole horns are sticking out.” Following Lukashenko, state Belarusian television simply states that “Tikhanovsky’s connection with Russia is obvious.”
At the same time, Belarusian state media accuse Russophobes-nationalists, who for some reason support the blogger, of treason and urge them to come to their senses.
“So how can you, “fighters” against “Russian imperialism” and “Putin’s threat”, collect for such a completely “Russian-speaking” “unconscious” populist of the 80s of the XNUMXth century. signatures in support of his nomination under the white-red-white flag and “pursuit”? Or don’t thirty pieces of silver torment?” – the chairman of the standing commission on education, culture and science of the Belarusian Senate, Igor Marzalyuk, wrote (especially in the rarely used Belarusian language) in a column for the BelTA agency.
The European Union threatens Minsk with sanctions for the arrest of a "Russian agent" in Belarus.