\u2013 Mr Mikhail, how the hearing in the European Parliament was held?<\/p>\n
\u2013 Yesterday was a very eventful day. The hearing began in the morning. It was opened by Edward McMillan Scott, Vice-President of the European Parliament. Laima Andrikiene, head of the European Parliament Committee on Human Rights prepared the hearing, which was attended by more than 50 MPs. Professor Yury Bandazheuski, academician Ivan Nikitchanka, deputy head of the Belarusian Popular Front party Vintsuk Vyachorka, head of the public association \u201cUnion Chernobyl-Belarus\u201d Alyaksandr Vauchalin, lawyer Harry Pahanyaila, and Jacek Protasiewicz, MEP, chairman of the Delegation for Relations with Belarus, presented papers on the hearing. We discussed the present demographic situation in Belarus, the health of the Belarusian nation, who continues to suffer from the Chernobyl disaster consequences.<\/p>\n
Professor Yury Bandazheuski, who had to move from Belarus to Vilnius, was an \u201cengine\u201d of this conference. He is intent on helping his native country in overcoming the Chernobyl disaster consequences.<\/p>\n
\u2013 What problems were the main on the hearing?<\/p>\n
\u2013 The most awful thing is that deaths exceed births twofold. The members of the European Parliament were shocked with this fact. Professor Bandazheuski is sure radiation is still dangerous for the health of the Belarusians. But the Belarusian authorities today reject there are problems, connected with the Chernobyl nuclear plant accident. Both representatives of Belarus and members of the European Parliament mentioned it. How these awful things can be hushed up today? Such high mortality rate \u2013 isn\u2019t it a problem? The policy conducted by the authorities towards their own people is cynical.<\/p>\n
A resolution was adopted, calling on the authorities to pay more attention to Chernobyl accident problems. If measures on improving the situation are not taken, the population of Belarus may reduce to 6 million people in 10-15 years. Spending funds, provided for humanitarian aid to Belarus should be put under International control. All possible should be done for this money can reach target under the control of the civil society, not be distributed among officials. An issue of the Belarusian liquidators of the Chernobyl disaster consequences, deprived of practically all their social privileges by the authorities, was also raised.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Was the political situation in Belarus discussed in Brussels?<\/p>\n
\u2013 Sure. Everyone understands Chernobyl problems in Belarus can\u2019t be solved without democracy. All speakers called not to allow vote fraud at the coming parliamentary elections in Belarus. I told about the civil campaign \u201cEuropean Belarus,\u201d about introduction of the European values to Belarusians. I told about Solidarity Day, holding every 16 day of a month in Belarus. We raised a question of political prisoners, spoke about immediate release of Alyaksandr Kazulin and other prisoners of conscience, about accepting of 12 proposals of the European Union by the authorities.<\/p>\n
I met with Henrik Kroner, Secretary General of the European Movement, and his colleagues during my visit to Brussels. All of them spoke that freedom and democracy must come to Belarus and our country should be integrated into Europe.<\/p>\n
\u2013 What is a unique character of the hearing in the European Parliament?<\/p>\n
\u2013 It is a call of the Belarusian democrats to the European community, informing Europe about the problems, Belarus have faced after the accident on the Chernobyl nuclear plant. It was decided to create an independent center, which task would be to inform about Chernobyl problems and help the victims of the disaster, including liquidators. It was said such hearing should be organised every year, in order the Chernobyl question be discussed, because the hushing up practice is harmful both for Belarus and the European countries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hearings \u201cChernobyl today,\u201c dedicated to the situation in Belarus, were held in the European Parliament on 17 April. Members of the working group on Belarusian affairs, representatives of the European Commission, and delegations of democratic forces and civil society in Belarus took part in the hearing. The Charter\u201997 press center talks about the hearing in Brussels with Mikhail Marynich, former political prisoner and member of the organising committee of the civil campaign \u201cEuropean Belarus.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":215452,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/europeanbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200046"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/europeanbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/europeanbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/europeanbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/europeanbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200046"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/europeanbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200046\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/europeanbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/215452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/europeanbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/europeanbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/europeanbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}