28 March 2024, Thursday, 17:25
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Mikalai Statkevich: Socialist International’s Secretary General Tried To Free Me From Prison With Aliyev’s Help

The leader of the Belarusian opposition has taken part in the Council of the Socialist International in the capital of Angola.

The leader of the Belarusian Social Democratic Party Narodnaya Hramada Mikalai Statkevich told about that in his comment to charter97.org website.

– The Socialist International is a well-known international organisation with a history of more than 100 years, – the politician reminded. – It unites more than 150 Social Democratic and ideologically close parties from 120 countries of the world. The President of the Socialist International is the former Prime Minister of Greece, George Papandreou. The Secretary General is a former Chilean dissenter Luis Ayala, who was in prison twice during the rule of Augusto Pinochet regime. He personally invited me to participate in this forum. Narodnaya Hramada has a status of “the consultative party” at the SI. It is the only left-of-centre party in our country which has such a status. We do not have registration in Belarus, but we have recognition at the highest international level.

– Luis Ayala was in Belarus in the time when you were behind the bars, and he met with Aliaksandr Lukashenka…

– Yes, he was concerned in my case all the time, while I was in prison, and he has done a lot for my release. Luis Ayala was in Minsk in January 2011. And yesterday I learnt from Azerbaijani politicians here in Luanda, that he had met with Ilkham Aliyev, and asked him to talk to Aliaksandr Lukashenka on this topic, but our ruler refused to release me, motivating that by the fact that I would disagree to accept such conditions myself.

– Have you delivered a speech to the audience? What have you been talking about?

– The key topic of the forum was problems of the region in which it had been taking place – Africa. My speech was delivered yesterday. I spoke about crackdown in our country, about rigged election results, about my imprisonment and why I found myself behind the bars in 2010. The topic of Belarus was also mentioned before that, the Secretary General of the Socialist International spoke about that when he presented me. We also discussed the situation in our country with the president of the organisation, representatives of the leadership and other participants of the forum. The Secretary General of the Socialist International plans to visit Belarus in the beginning of the next year.

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