{"id":45450,"date":"2023-01-23T21:43:51","date_gmt":"2023-01-23T18:43:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/api.pozirk.online\/articles\/meps-statement-condemns-trial-of-belarusian-opposition-leaders\/"},"modified":"2026-02-24T20:29:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T20:29:13","slug":"meps-statement-condemns-trial-of-belarusian-opposition-leaders","status":"publish","type":"articles","link":"https:\/\/pozirk.online\/en\/news\/45450\/","title":{"rendered":"MEPs\u2019 statement condemns trial of Belarusian opposition leaders"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>January 23, <span>BPN.<\/span><\/b> The leader of the European Parliament\u2019s delegation for relations with Belarus Juozas Olekas and the parliament\u2019s rapporteur on Belarus Petras Au\u0161trevi\u010dius condemned \u201cin the strongest terms\u201d the trial in absence of Belarusian opposition leaders.<\/p>\n<p> The MEPs regard the charges against \u015aviat\u0142ana Cichano\u016dskaja, \u201cwho is widely considered to be the real winner of the 2020 presidential election,\u201d and against Coordinating Council members as trumped up.<\/p>\n<p> \u201cSimilarly, we are gravely concerned by the on-going, politically motivated trials of Sakharov Prize and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ale\u015b Bialacki, who devoted his entire life to promoting democratic change in Belarus, of two members of his Viasna human rights center, Valancin Stefanovi\u010d and U\u0142adzimir \u0141abkovi\u010d, and of journalist and activist of the Union of Poles in Belarus, Andrzej Poczobut,\u201d the statement reads.<\/p>\n<p> The MEPs say they have no doubt that \u201cthese sham trials aim to instigate fear, silence independent voices and close all remaining space for a genuine political debate in Belarus.\u201d<\/p>\n<p> Citing Viasna, Olekas and Au\u0161trevi\u010dius note that the number of political prisoners in Belarus is \u201cunprecedented, nearing 1,500.\u201d \u201cIt could be even much higher in reality, as many victims do not reach out to human rights defenders, for fear of further persecution,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n<p> They urged the European Union to step up support for \u201call the brave Belarusians who are fighting for a sovereign, peaceful and democratic Belarus, and to impose further sanctions on officials of \u0141uka\u0161enka\u2019s illegitimate regime who commit or are complicit in human rights violations, notably so-called law enforcement officers, prosecutors and judges.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>They also advocated \u201cfurther sanctions on those regime officials who are responsible for Belarus\u2019 involvement in Russia\u2019s war of aggression against Ukraine.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>January 23, BPN. The leader of the European Parliament\u2019s delegation for relations with Belarus Juozas Olekas and the parliament\u2019s rapporteur on Belarus Petras Au\u0161trevi\u010dius condemned \u201cin the strongest terms\u201d the trial in absence of Belarusian opposition leaders. The MEPs regard the charges against \u015aviat\u0142ana Cichano\u016dskaja, \u201cwho is widely considered to be the real winner of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":75,"featured_media":0,"template":"","rubric":[16],"class_list":["post-45450","articles","type-articles","status-publish","hentry","rubric-politics"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>MEPs\u2019 statement condemns trial of Belarusian opposition leaders | Pozirk<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"January 23, BPN. 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The leader of the European Parliament\u2019s delegation for relations with Belarus Juozas Olekas and the parliament\u2019s rapporteur on Belarus","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/pozirk.online\/en\/news\/45450\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"MEPs\u2019 statement condemns trial of Belarusian opposition leaders | Pozirk","og_description":"January 23, BPN. 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