\u201cPolish people know well how efficient was a system of international solidarity in Poland\u2019s hard times, and we remember that this country wouldn\u2019t have returned to Europe and become a full EU member if it hadn\u2019t been for support of freedom fighters and international pressure upon the Polish communist regime. The fact that Poland will use its membership in the EU for weakening the support of the democratic forces in Belarus evokes just perplexity and regret. I\u2019m afraid business interests of the Polish authorities can overrule considerations of morality and solidarity,\u201d Sannikov noted.<\/p>\n
In addition, the politician showed his surprise of the fact the Polish authorities saw some signals of the Belarusian regime demonstrating readiness to move towards Europe in the issue of human rights.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow is it possible to speak about positive signals of the Belarusian authorities, if the situation with human rights in Belarus is getting worse day by day? Political prisoners are still in prisons, cases of kidnapped opposition leaders are not investigated, repressions against the civil society are strengthening, and the Belarusian authorities have made a list of democratic movement activists, restricted to leave the country. How is it possible to see positive signs in adoption the Law on Mass Media in the second reading by the \u201chouse of representatives\u201d, the law, which is targeted at complete elimination of free speech in Belarus?\u201d one of the leaders of the \u201cEuropean Belarus\u201d wonders.<\/p>\n
Sannikov notes that sanctions against the Belarusian officials can be lifted if the officials fulfil some simple conditions.<\/p>\n
\u201cDid Poland indeed chose the time to declare its new approaches in the moment, when the Belarusian authorities are stirring up a conflict with the United States, the reason of which is US sanctions for violations of human rights? The European Union didn\u2019t impose serious sanctions on Belarus. Opportunities for improving the relations with Europe are open for Belarus. Personal sanctions against some Belarusian officials can easily be lifted if they fulfil some very simple conditions, namely release of political prisoners and stopping of political repressions. It would be the signals, the democratic countries should notice. But trusting the representatives of the dictator regime is a height of naivety. Poland shouldn\u2019t forget that the number of killed, kidnapped and imprisoned opponents to the regime amounts by thousands in the countries of the Latin America and Africa, on which no restrictions for violation of human rights have been imposed,\u201d Sannikov noted.<\/p>\n
\u201cSuch actions of Poland would mean support of the Belarusian regime, not of the independence of Belarus, as some Poland\u2019s official representatives like to state. It makes the position of the democratic forces considerably weaker in pre-election period and opens more opportunities for the authorities to bargain with Europe to the prejudice of human rights in Belarus,\u201d the politician concluded.<\/p>\n
It should be reminded that Russian \u201cNovye Izvestiya\u201d newspaper reports yesterday the Polish diplomats working in Brussels tried to persuade their EU colleagues to lift or ease political and economic sanctions against Lukashenka\u2019s dictatorship. Their main argument is that any restrictions against Minsk are useless, and top priority task is to \u201crescue Minsk from Moscow\u201d. Polish media write much about signals from Lukashenka\u2019s administration showing the \u201ccurrent Belarusian authorities are ready for concessions and better observing of human rights for the sake of cooperation with the European Union.\u201d As an officer from the Polish Foreign Ministry told to \u201cNovye Izvestiya\u201d, \u201cafter Russian increased prices for gas and oil for Belarus, the economic situation has got worse so much that Lukashenka desperately needs western loans to buy Russian energy. He understands well that only restoration of Belarusian export to the EU counties can help him to preserve the power.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cThere isn\u2019t much new in the position of Polish diplomacy. For a long time a line to recognition of the Lukashenka\u2019s regime has been pursued confidentially, but today it was likely to be decided to avow it. If information about new Poland\u2019s approaches towards the situation in Belarus is true, it can\u2019t be named other than treachery of the Solidarity movement\u2019s ideals,\u201d Andrei Sannikov, international coordinator of Charter\u201997, one of the leaders of the \u201cEuropean Belarus\u201d civil campaign, said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":215542,"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\/200116"}],"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=200116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/europeanbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200116\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/europeanbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/215542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/europeanbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/europeanbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/europeanbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}