BRATISLAVA, December 20, (WEBNOVINY)- The Slovak Foreign Ministry regrets to say that a year after undemocratic presidential elections in Belarus the regime of Alexander Lukashenko has not changed its policy. “The Slovak Republic principally condemned brutal violence and arresting of presidential candidates and pro-democratic citizens of Belarus. We are gravely concerned that the leadership of the country failed to stop this policy even in 2011 and there are still political prisoners in Belarus,“ reads the ministry’s statement issued on the first anniversary of Lukashenko’s re-election. Persecutions and restrictions against the opposition and adopting laws curtailing freedom of civic society continue. “The Foreign Ministry of the Slovak Republic repeatedly urges the political leadership of Belarus to respect democratic principles and rules of cooperation with the European Union, to release and fully rehabilitate all political prisoners and to start a dialogue with the opposition and the civic society,” reads the MFA statement.
Dozens of demonstrators were detained Monday for denouncing Belarus‘ authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko on the first anniversary of his re-election. It was the latest crackdown on dissent in the ex-Soviet state, where Lukashenko has repressed the opposition and silenced independent media since becoming leader in 1994. Protesters in Minsk Monday carried candles and pictures of people still jailed after protests on election night a year ago. Some 700 people were arrested in those protests, scores of whom remain behind bars.
SITA
