Uladzimir Labkovich: Europe’s concessions give regime perception of permissiveness

While the EU is softening its attitude towards the Belarusian regime, two new political prisoners may appear in the country.

This is how a member of the Council of the human rights center Viasna Uladzimir Labkovich commented for the charter97.org web-site on new criminal cases against Uladzimir Jaromienak and Vasil Parfiankou.

“So far we are observing the European Union’s steps, which is unilaterally softening its attitude towards the Belarusian regime. An indicative case is the suspension of the restrictions against Makej. On our part we believe that such unilateral steps are absolutely mistaken, since at the current moment we see that the situation with human rights is worsening. We are observing that criminal prosecution of civic and political activists continues. Of course, in case Jaromienak and Parfiankou are sentenced, they will be recognized political prisoners, since these verdicts will be exclusively caused by their political activities and will be another persecution for their previous civic and political activities”, - the human rights activist highlighted.

The lawyer hopes that European politicians will not cherish the very relations with Belarusian authorities as something valuable.

“One must not forget that the paramount and obligatory demand is the release and unconditional exonerations of all political prisoners. That is why it seems to me that only this can be a not only a subject but even a precondition for any dialogue. In the situation, when there are political prisoners, and the situation with human rights is worsening, such steps of Europe on the contrary give the Belarusian regime a perception of permisssiveness and temptation to pursue with the absolutely inadmissible policies in the human rights domain”, - Uladzimir Labkovich is convinced.

We would remind that another criminal case has been started yesterday against a former political prisoner Uladzimir Jaromienak.

We would also note that on 12 July another criminal case has been started against Vasil Parfiankou, who was previously sentenced for participating in the 19 December 2010 events.