EU Sanctions against Belarusian Officials Extended by One Year

The Council of the European Union, meeting in its Transport, Telecommunications and Energy configuration in Brussels on April 7, decided to extend by one year the EU’s sanctions against Belarus` officials.

EUAs a spokesman for the EU Council told BelaPAN, the list of targeted officials was left unchanged. According to him, the sanctions may be revised and the list may be reduced or increased at any moment. “Grounds for revising the sanctions will be the complete and unconditional release of all political prisoners in Belarus and the conducting of free and fair parliamentary elections this fall,” he said.

There are currently 41 people on the EU`s list of Belarusian officials subject to a visa ban and an assets freeze in connection with their alleged involvement in a crackdown on civil society and opposition activists in the country.

Four of them were added in October 2006. Those were Judge Alyaksey Rybakow who sentenced former presidential candidate Alyaksandr Kazulin to 5 1/2 years in prison; Syarhey Bortnik, the public prosecutor in the trial; Judge Leanid Yasinovich who handed down prison sentences to four independent election observation activists; and Andrey Mihun, the public prosecutor in the trial.

Thirty-one people, including Alyaksandr Lukashenka, were entered following a March 2006 presidential election for their alleged involvement in violations of international election standards and crackdowns on post-election protests.

Among them were KGB chief Stsyapan Sukharenka; Prosecutor General Pyotr Miklashevich; Henadz Nyavyhlas, head of the Presidential Administration; Natallya Pyatkevich, deputy head of the Presidential Administration; Anatol Rubinaw; first deputy head of the Presidential Administration; Aleh Pralyaskowski, presidential aide for ideology; the ministers of education, information and justice; the head of the Belarusian State Television and Radio Company; several lawmakers, the secretary of the central election commission; the chairman of the pro-government Federation of Trade Unions of Belarus; two district judges; and the chairpersons of the six regional election commissions and the Minsk city election commission in the 2006 presidential election.

Six people entered on the list earlier include four persons suspected of involvement in the 1999-2000 disappearances of Mr. Lukashenka`s opponents. Those were Interior Minister Uladzimir Navumaw; Viktar Sheyman, a former prosecutor general; Yury Sivakow, a former interior minister; and Dzmitry Pawlichenka, commander of an Interior Troops unit. The latter three were implicated by a so-called Pourgourides Report in the alleged abduction and murder of opposition politicians Yury Zakharanka and Viktar Hanchar, businessman Anatol Krasowski and journalist Dzmitry Zavadski.

Lidziya Yarmoshyna, head of the central election commission, and Yury Padabed, chief of the Minsk riot police, were added to the list a few weeks after parliamentary elections and a constitutional referendum in November 2004.