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This is the third time in a short time that Sweden has frozen efforts in the country.
A couple of weeks ago, Sida suspended aid payments to two projects in Belarus: a collaboration with the Belarusian central bank and support for the country’s business community. In both cases, state actors had “an active role”, as Sida puts it, and due to the situation in Belarus after the elections a month ago, Sweden decided to freeze support.
“An escalation of violence and deprivation of liberty”
There has been another project in which a state actor in Belarus has played an active role, a collaboration with the Minsk State University. So far, SEK 44 million has been paid for the project, which was originally intended to be followed by another four million in the fall. But Ekot reveals that Sida has now decided to halt the rest of that relief effort because “the state uses violence and detains people protesting against electoral fraud and police violence.”
– We see that the election, and what the election has brought with it in the form of an escalation of violence and deprivation of liberty against our own population, which breaks with what we have seen before. So for us, this still marks something of a turning point, says Christina Danielsson, head of the Eastern European unit on AIDS.
Nobel laureates threatened in Belarus
