EU urged not to forget Belarus as bloc prepares sanctions
BRUSSELS – Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya on Wednesday called on the European Union not to forget the plight of ordinary citizens and political prisoners in the former Soviet country, as the EU prepares new sanctions to prevent a crisis security at its borders attributed to President Alexander Lukashenko.
Tsikhanouskaya told EU lawmakers that “882 of my fellow citizens have been found imprisoned for exercising basic political rights that people in the rest of Europe take for granted.” She urged the bloc of 27 countries not to recognize Lukashenko or his government and to strengthen support for ordinary citizens.
“It is getting late. Since August 2020, there is no shortage of gestures and expressions of solidarity. Belarusians have been praised for having rekindled their faith in democracy and human dignity,” she said. is it not the turn of Europeans to demonstrate their attachment to these values through action?
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His remarks come as the EU prepares to unveil a new round of sanctions against Belarus – this is the fifth package of travel bans and asset freezes – targeting Lukashenko and his associates, members of the government, security forces, court officials and other authorities.
This time, however, the measures will also hit air carriers and travel groups accused by the EU of helping bring migrants to Belarus in a bid to help them cross Europe, mainly via Poland, the Lithuania and Latvia, according to a draft text seen by the Associated Press.
EU said Lukashenko was waging a ‘hybrid attack’ using migrants to destabilize the bloc in revenge for sanctions against him in last year’s contested elections that won a new term for the hard-line leader Belarus and the subsequent security crackdown on peaceful protesters.
With this in mind, the EU is targeting Belarusian airlines Belavia. “Migrants wishing to cross the Union’s external border traveled to Minsk on flights operated by Belavia from several countries in the Middle East, in particular Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates (United Arab Emirates) and the Turkey, “the document says.
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Cham Wing Airlines, which operates flights between Syria and Belarus, is also in the EU’s sights. He is accused of having increased the number of flights from Damascus to Minsk during the summer and of having opened new offices in the Belarusian capital to better organize shuttles.
The state-run tourism company Tsentrkurort is also on the list, which the EU says has helped at least 51 Iraqis obtain visas for Belarus and organized their bus transport to the borders.
The company Hotel Minsk and the Hotel Planeta, which are linked to the management of the property management of the Belarusian president, are accused of harboring migrants aiming to reach the border.
The EU will also take on VIP Grub, a passport and visa service based in Istanbul, Turkey. The draft sanctions list states that the company “organizes trips to Belarus with the explicit intention of facilitating migration to the EU. VIP Grub actively promotes migration to the EU.
Sanctions are expected to be approved in the coming days.
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“The sanctions are working,” Tsikhanouskaya said. “Sanctions divide elites, destroy patterns of corruption and divide people around Lukashenko. She urged the EU not to “invest more in the mafia regime. Send a message that we will not enrich him so that he can use these resources to abuse his citizens. “
Meanwhile, Ukraine has launched a special operation on its border with Belarus aimed at strengthening security to prevent migrants from entering. It comes as hundreds of people, mostly from the Middle East, remain stranded in Belarus on the Polish border, trapped as forces from the two countries clash.
Ukrainian authorities said last Friday they had intercepted 15 people of Middle Eastern descent trying to cross Belarus, the first such incident at the Ukrainian border since the security crisis erupted at the EU’s borders.
Ukraine shares a 1,084 kilometer (678 mile) border with Belarus, and Ukrainian Interior Minister Denys Monastyrskiy has announced plans to build a border fence with Belarus and Russia as a result of the incident.
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Frank Jordans in Berlin and Yuras Karmanau in Kiev, Ukraine contributed to this report.
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