Alena Tankachova: We’ll figure out where “dances on bones” come from

• 14.04.2011, 15:00

A Belarusian human rights activist regards statements of official TV channels as a personal insult.

For the last two days, the state-run channels have been covering the sitting of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly in Strasbourg where the situation in Belarus was discussed. In particular, it was mentioned that “Mr Byalyatski and Ms Tankachova” attended the sitting and asked to impose economic sanctions on the country “cynically stomping on the people’s grief”. Yesterday, Alyaksandr Lukashenka mentioned them calling human rights activists a “fifth column” and describing their behavior as “dancing on bones”.

Alena Tankachova told Euroradio that Ales Byalyatski and she knew about these remarks. The human rights activist took them as a personal insult.

“Once we return t Minsk, we will file official requests to the Belarusian TV and Radio Company, ONT and STV TV channels, which were reading this “excellent” text from the same sheet of paper. I will try to figure out from where they have the information, on which ground they found it possible to make conclusions on “dancing on bones”. Then we will sort it out. I expect apology,” Tankachova said.

Alena Tankachova noted that none of the official TV channels said the PACE sittings had been opened with a moment of silence in memory of the victims of the Minsk metro terrorist attack.