German Social Democrats call on interior ministry to come clean

The reason is cooperation between the German police and Belarusian law-enforcement agencies.

Germany's opposition Social Democratic Party (SPD) says the explanations by interior minister Hans-Peter Friedrich regarding cooperation with Belarus were 'trickery”.

The SDP intends to invite the minister to a meeting of the parliamentary committee on internal affairs, BelaPAN news agency reports with a link to German Der Tagesspiegel. The Left and the Greens prepared a list of questions to the government. They want Friedrich to give explanations regarding equipment supplies to Belarusian law-enforcement agencies. The German Interior Ministry said recently official Minsk had received computers, software, video cameras and three VW vehicles, but the ministry denies rubber batons supplies to Belarus. The opposition finds this information insufficient.

Michael Hartmann, the SDP internal policy spokesman, said: “The explanations given by the federal ministry are vague and ambiguous. It's time for the ministry to come clean.”

As charter97.org already reported, a scandal around cooperation between German and Belarusian law-enforcement agencies has been developing dor the last few days. German journalists report Belarusian police were trained to disperse protest rallies. There is information that cooperation lasted until spring 2012, though German officials claim it was halted after brutal suppression of protests on December 19, 2010.