48 Hours Left for the Regime! :: Charter'97 :: News

Over 60 representative of Belarusian public – famous writers, poets, politicians and relatives of the repressed victims of the regime – addressed with a take-it-or-leave-it ultimatum the Belarusian authorities. According to the statement, the officials have only 48 hours to prove their non-involvement in the abductions of opposition figures. Otherwise, there’ll be every ground to consider that the responsibility for the disappearances rests with the current regime.

“September 16 turns two years since the abduction of Viktor Gonchar and Anatoly Krasovsky. More than two years have passed since the vanishing of former Interior Minister Yuri Zakharenko, a year and two months – since the kidnapping of the journalist Dmitry Zavadsky. There’s no clarity in the chain of tragic deaths: Anatoly Maisenya, Gennady Karpenko. The political motivation in the incarceration of convicted Andrei Klimov and Valery Schukin is evident,” – reads the statement.

“The Belarusian authorities have 48 hours to present proof of their non-involvement in abductions of their opponents. 48 hours to demonstrate to the nation their clean hands, on which there’s no blood. 48 hours to present to the nation their alibi. 48 hours to distinctly voice their reasoning and refute the witness’s testimony and documents on the involvement of special forces in human abductions.

Given the authorities fail to do it within next 48 hours, we’ll have every ground to consider that the responsibility for what had happened lies with the ruling regime.

Anatoly Lebedko, chair of the United Civil Party,

Ludmila Karpenko, wife of Gennady Karpenko,

Svetlana Zavadskaya, wife of Dmitry Zavadsky,

Stanislav Bogdankevich, professor,

Gennady Buravkin, poet,

Tatyana Klimova, wife of Andrei Klimov,

Irina Krasovskaya, wife of Anatoly Krasovsky,

Olga Zakharenko, wife of Yuri Zakharenko,

Ales Kornienko, “UCP Youth” leader,

Vladimir Nekliaev, poet,

Over 60 signatories in total.”