Opposition politician urges MEPs to sanction Minsk for prisoners’ forced labor

February 5, Pozirk. The Warsaw-based National Anti-Crisis Management (NAM) has submitted proposals to MEPs on a new resolution, its head Pavieł Łatuška has announced on Telegram. 

He is expecting the European Parliament to respond to “the ongoing obscurantism and recent arrests of hundreds of Belarusians.”

Sanctions against goods “manufactured using the slave labor of political prisoners” may force Alaksandar Łukašenka to release them, the politician noted.

Łatuška called for the harmonization of sanctions on Minsk and Moscow and limiting the transit of sanctioned goods through Belarus and Russia to and from third countries to prevent evasion.

Financial sanctions against Minsk should be tightened up to the closure and blocking of correspondent accounts of those Belarusian banks that service sanctioned companies from Russia and Belarus, he said.

The politician also called for sanctions against the Russian financial messaging system, an equivalent of SWIFT, that Russian authorities and companies use to cover up sanction evasion.

The NAM has already shared these proposals with the foreign ministers of Estonia, Lithuania, Poland, Sweden and other countries, he added.

Łatuška pledged to seek accountability for Łukašenka and his officials for human rights abuse in Belarus.