Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-01-19-Speech-3-516-000"
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"en.20110119.25.3-516-000"2
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"Mr President, I think that the High Representative is completely echoing our feelings when she says she was shocked.
We were indeed shocked after 19 December, as many of us had already hoped that there would be a gradual opening-up of Belarus towards the European Union. I now think that a lot of those hopes have gone for the time being. It is very worrying to hear – almost hourly – news of ongoing repression in Minsk and other parts of Belarus.
Just yesterday, the harassment of the human rights organisation Viasna continued, with house raids, arrests and detentions. This is an organisation which has very courageously been defending human rights in Belarus. The authorities have still not allowed it to register.
The Belarusian Helsinki Committee received a warning after it contacted the UN Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers. It has good reason to believe that those charged with these serious offences are not going to be given a fair trial.
Today, we also had news of the former presidential candidate, Mr Sannikov, his spouse Iryna Khalip, a journalist and correspondent of the Novaya Gazeta in Minsk, and their child – which was a worldwide sensation. We have heard that the child may be allowed to stay with its grandparents, as the parents are detained. However, I would just warn that this is not good news yet. We still need confirmation, which may arrive next week.
So why is this ‘strike hard’ happening in Belarus? We really need to insist on an independent international inquiry into what happened, in order to understand all the background and to understand whether provocateurs actually instigated this violence – which has now been declared criminal – and not those who were actually only calling for democracy in Belarus. In my view, the most appropriate body to conduct such an investigation would be the OSCE and, failing that, the United Nations.
What about new elections? We should be careful about calling for new elections too soon because we need to safeguard the road map towards democratic reforms. We need to guarantee freedom of the press, of association and of assembly. Without that, we would not be gaining much, even if Belarus held new elections today."@en1
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