Belarusians picketing PACE headquarters in Strasburg

• 25.01.2012, 11:51

The situation in Belarus is expected to be discussed today in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

A special rapporteur on Belarus, Andres Herkel, will present a report at the PACE winter session, Radio Racyja reports.

A resolution is expected to be adopted after the debate. The draft resolution proposes not to resume high-level contacts between PACE and the Belarusian authorities until a moratorium on the death penalty is introduced.

Activists of the Belarusian-European association are holding a picket in front of the assembly building. One of the organizers, Pavel Khivuk, says:

“The aim of our picket is to tell they should stop imitating the struggle against dictatorship in Belarus and laundering money on the Belarusian problem. Nobody knows on what money is spent. There are no accounts, no one controls the flows. We call on the members of the Parliamentary Assembly to awake their conscience and stop imitating the struggle against dictatorship in Belarus.”

Belarus is the only European country which is not a member of the Council of Europe. The Belarusian “parliament” lost its special guest status in the PACE in 1997.