Belarus/Tikhanovskaya: pressure must be maintained on the Lukashenko regime


Svetlana Tikhanovskaïa, leader of the Belarusian opposition, pleaded on Tuesday August 9 for the West to maintain pressure on the regime of Alexander Lukashenko, while imploring not to put her country on the same level as the Russia in the context of the war in Ukraine.

Lukashenko must in no way be legitimized on the international scene“, insisted the opponent to the Polish daily Rzeczpospolita, two years to the day after the presidential election of which she claimed victory, initiating a protest movement severely repressed.

SEE ALSO – Alexander Lukashenko: West ‘provoked’ war in Ukraine

1,261 political prisoners are still detained in Belarus as of August 9, 2022, according to Viesna, one of the main human rights organizations in this country. According to Svetlana Tikhanovskaïa, the sanctions taken by Western countries against the regime of Alexander Lukashenko remain imperfect and do not force the authorities to release political prisoners. “The sanctions have been taken, but they have many shortcomings and possibilities of circumvention“, Lamented Svetlana Tikhanovskaïa. “Western countries argue that they don’t want to penalize Belarusian workers with sanctions, but aren’t prisoners held behind bars suffering too? (…) The West must open its eyes“Argued the opponent whose husband, a dissident imprisoned since May 2020, was sentenced to 18 years in camp.

SEE ALSO – Lukashenko accuses Ukraine of firing missiles at Belarus

Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who lives in exile in neighboring Lithuania, also agreed that the war in Ukraine has reinforced Belarus’ dependence on the Kremlin to which Alexander Lukashenko appears more loyal than ever, the country now serving as a rear base for the Russian forces. But, she insisted,the West must not put the West in the same bag as Russia (…) but must make it clear to the Kremlin that an annexation of Belarus by Russia is unthinkable“.



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