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The EU expects “the immediate release of all those who were imprisoned for political reasons before and after the fraudulent presidential elections on August 9,” Borrell said on Monday.
10:35 pm, September 7, 2020
Following the alleged arrest of Belarusian opposition activist Maria Kolesnikova The EU Foreign Affairs representative, Josep Borrell, has called on the Minsk authorities to “immediately release” political opponents.
According to the opposition-founded Coordination Council, Kolesnikova was allegedly abducted on Monday morning along with a spokesperson and an employee “by strangers in the center of Minsk”. His disappearance and more than 630 arrests during renewed mass protests against Head of State Alexander Lukashenko over the weekend sparked international outrage.
Since the controversial presidential elections on August 9, people in Belarus have been demonstrating against Lukashenko, who has ruled authoritarianly for 26 years. They accuse the government of massive fraud in the elections, which, according to official information, Lukashenko won with 80 percent of the vote. They are not deterred by the violence of the security forces.
Family turned to the police
Even hours after her disappearance, there is still uncertainty about the fate of opposition politician Maria Kolesnikova in Belarus. Relatives submitted a missing person report to the police, as the team of former bank chief Viktor Babariko announced Monday night.
The 38-year-old works for the jailed opposition member who wanted to compete against the authoritarian head of state Alexander Lukashenko. According to the opposition, there have been no signs of life from him since Monday morning. According to the opinion of the Coordination Council of the Movement for Democracy, to which she belongs, Kolesnikova, together with her colleague Ivan Kravzov and her spokesman Anton Rodnenkow, were abducted by unknown persons in the center of the capital Minsk. The Interior Ministry said it had not arrested Kolesnikova. The council called for her immediate release.
Tichanovskaya in the Council of Europe
Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tichanovskaya will participate in a meeting of the Council of Europe via videoconference on Tuesday (10:00 am). The political affairs and democracy body of the organization of the country of Strasbourg wants to deal with the crisis after the controversial presidential elections in Belarus in early August.
Tichanovskaya and other members of the opposition fled the country following violence against protesters by the security forces. The 37-year-old man is currently in Lithuania. The protesters accuse the President of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, among other things of electoral fraud. The authorities are sometimes brutal against protests. Thousands of people have been arrested in recent weeks, some have died and hundreds have been injured. Belarus is the only European country that is not a member of the Council of Europe. The country applied for membership in 1993, but in 1997 the accession process was suspended.
