Foreign Ministry of Estonia: New Repressions in Belarus are Obvious :: Charter'97 :: News

On Wednesday Estonian Foreign Minister of Estonia Urmas Paet called upon release of activists of the civil initiative of elections observation Partnerstva sentenced to imprisonment in Belarus, and indicated a possibility to expand the list of persons banned from entering the EU by Belarusian leaders.

“The Belarusian regime is to release four activists of the civil initiative “Partnerstva” immediately,” Paet said to journalists.

The court of Tsentralny district of Minsk has condemned Enira Branitskaya (24), Mikalay Astrejka (25) and Tsimafei Dranchuk (25), and Alyaksandr Shalajka (29). Branitskaya and Astrejka have visited educational courses for public associations in Estonia several times.

The trial on August 4 in Minsk passed a verdict to the four activists. Astrejka was sentenced to 2 years in minimum-security correctional labour facility, Tsimafei Dranchuk to one year of minimum-security correctional labour facility, Alyaksandr Shalajka and Enira Branitskaya to 6 months of imprisonment. As said by Mr. Paet, it causes great concern that political repressions, which in spirit if not in scale remind Stalin era, are taking place in the modern Europe.

“We witness new repressions, and in this connection I should remind that the EU can expand the list of non-grata persons,” Mr. Paet said. “It is clear that this list is open, and persons personally responsible for repressions could be put on that list”.

In line with the EU attitude, in May this year Estonian government imposed financial sanctions and a visa ban for a number of high-ranking Belarusian officials including Alyaksandr Lukashenka. Among 31 persons on the list are heads of presidential administration, deputies of the “parliament” of Belarus, members of the Central elections committee.

Photo by lenta.ru