Romania to contribute EUR 120,000 to the Belarusian civil society, independent media, and the International Accountability Platform for Belarus

December 25. Romania would contribute EUR 100,000 to the Belarusian civil society and free media, as well as EUR 20,000 to the International Accountability Platform for Belarus (IAPB), Romanian Foreign Minister Bogdan Aurescu announced.

“Romania stays active in promoting democracy,” Aurescu twitted.

The IAPB is a coalition of independent non-government organisations that have joined forces to collect, consolidate, verify, and preserve evidence of gross human rights violations, including torture, committed by Belarusian authorities in the run-up to the 2020 presidential election and its aftermath.

The platform was launched on March 24, 2021 in response to Professor Wolfgang Benedek’s report on alleged human rights violations in connection with the presidential elections in Belarus on August 9, 2020, presented to the OSCE Permanent Council on November 5, 2020. Professor Benedek compiled the report in the capacity of the OSCE Moscow Mechanism rapporteur, responsible for informing the OSCE Permanent Council on alleged human rights violations in Belarus.

Austria, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Germany, Denmark, Iceland, Canada, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, the USA, Finland, Czech Republic, Liechtenstein, Switzerland and Estonia signed a joint statement on March 24, 2021 in support of the IAPB.