Lithuanian Seimas to hold hearings on Belarus
The Lithuanian parliament is to have hearings on Belarus on November 27 ahead of the Eastern Partnership Summit in Vilnius.
The hearings to discuss the human rights situation in Belarus was initiated by the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the Seimas with participation of the Eastern Europe Studies Centre (Lithuania) and the organising committee to found the Belarusian Christian Democracy party (BCD).
Former political prisoner Pavel Seviarynets, president of the Barys Zvozskau Belarusian Human Rights House Tatsiana Raviaka, chairman of the Belarusian Association of Journalists Zhanna Litvina, Natallia Pinchuk (the wife of jailed human rights defender Ales Bilaiatski), Volha Zavadskaya (the mother of disappeared cameraman Dzmitry Zavadski), Maryna Adamovich (the wife of jailed former presidential candidate Mikalai Statkevich), Maryna Lobava (the mother of political prisoner Eduard Lobau) were invited to the hearings. Representatives of Belarusian political parties and NGOs are expected to attend the event, bchd.info reports.
An appeal to the Belarusian government, participants of the EaP Summit scheduled for November 28-29 and international human rights organisations is expected to be adopted at the hearings.
The draft appeal posted on the BCD website reads: “The necessary preliminary condition to start the process of normalisation of relations between Belarus and the EU is the release and the rehabilitaion of all Belarusian political prisoners.”
“We therefore appeal for the release of Belarusian citizens Ales Bialiatski, Mikalai Autukhovich, Mikalai Statkevich, Eudard Lobau, Ihar Alinevich, Mikalai Dziadok, Yauheny Vaskovich, Artsiom Prakapenka, Andrei Haidukou and Uladzimir Yaromenak. We call to cancel all restrictions imposed by a court and rehabilitate the candidates of the presidential election of December 19, 2010, and members of their teams convicted after December 19, 2010, as well as the persons whose prosecution was recognised by international organisations to be politically motivated since 1996,” the appeal says.
