Josep Borrell
EU President Josep Borrell threatened to expand sanctions against Belarus. It is reported by “Interfax”.
“The EU reaffirms its determination to impose sanctions on those responsible for the violence, the suppression of peaceful protests and the rigging of election results,” he said.
Borrell also expressed regret about “the increasingly open disregard for the rule of law in Belarus, in particular the escalation of violence and the forced expulsion of members of the Coordination Council [of the republic's opposition].”
The head of the European Union appealed to the Belarusian authorities with an appeal to release all illegally detained persons, including political prisoners, and to ensure that such “illegal actions do not continue and do not repeat.”
Of the seven members of the Presidium of the Coordination Council, six are either detained or are outside Belarus. The writer, Nobel Prize laureate in literature Svetlana Aleksievich remains at large. The day before, she appealed to the Russian intelligentsia and reproached them for insufficient support of the protesters Belarusians.
For the fifth week in Belarus, mass protests have continued over the official results of the presidential elections, according to which the incumbent head of state Alexander Lukashenko won 80 percent of the vote. The first actions were violently dispersed, seven thousand people were detained, it is known about several dead. Many detainees spoke of torture and beatings in isolation wards.
