MEPs urge EU to staff of Belarusian diplomatic mission in response to EU envoy’s arrest in Minsk

September 9, BPN. Detention of the EU Chargé d’Affaires Evelina Schulz in Minsk on September 6 was an “outrageous provocation” and a “blatant violation” of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, Juozas Olekas, chair of the Delegation for relations with Belarus, and Petras Auštrevičius, European Parliament’s Standing Rapporteur on Belarus, said in a joint statement.

“A direct, physical attack against an accredited diplomat is yet another indication that [Alaksandr] Łukašenka’s regime stops at nothing in its destructive path, even if it means jeopardizing what is left of diplomatic relations with its neighbors,” the document reads.

MEPs urged the EU and its member states to react by immediately reducing the number of Belarusian diplomats accredited in Brussels and other EU capitals, as well as to review their diplomatic presence in Minsk.

They also called on the Belarusian authorities “to release immediately and unconditionally all political prisoners, to drop all charges against them and to engage in a genuine, inclusive dialogue with the democratic forces and civil society” to resolve the current crisis and ensure a peaceful political transition.

Evelina Schulz was briefly arrested on September 6 in Minsk. “I was forcibly detained as I was exiting the building of Minsk City Court after conversing in the lobby of the court building with citizens in attendance for the public reading of the verdict in the closed-door trial in which ten political prisoners were sentenced to the total of 94 years of imprisonment,” the diplomat told BPN.

According to Schulz, she repeatedly made it clear that she had diplomatic immunity and insisted on the presence of a representative of the EU Delegation and/or consuls of Poland or Germany.

The diplomat added that she was filmed.

The EU blasted Schulz’s detention as illegal and reportedly summoned a Belarusian diplomat in Brussels to clarify the incident. 

Schulz was also summoned to the Belarusian foreign ministry which warned her against visiting Belarusian courts, hinting at “possible consequences of provocations.”