MINSK, 17 March (BelTA) – The stance of the European Union on the situation in Belarus is quite unconvincing today. Permanent Representative of the Republic of Belarus to the United Nations Office and other international organizations in Geneva Yuri Ambrazevich made the statement in an interview with the Swiss television and radio company RTS, BelTA has learned.
The diplomat said: “I hope one day we will return to the period of normalization of relations with our neighbors in Western Europe and with the European Union as a whole. Unfortunately, today the European Union's position is totally unconvincing. The enforcement of sanctions influences the mentality and the attitude of my fellow Belarusians towards the European Union. I've worked in Brussels for nearly eight years. This is why I know that the best way to promote the values you defend now with sanctions and restrictions is to start implementing joint projects. It has always been the best way.”
Yuri Ambrazevich pointed out that a recent report by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights lacks a lot of important elements that are crucial to understanding the events going on in Belarus. “It is difficult to recount everything over such a short period of time. But for starters we should ask ourselves whether the protesters were right to dispute the official results of the presidential election. If we evaluate the maximum number of demonstrators mentioned by Aleksandr Lukashenko's competitors themselves, we are talking about 300,000-400,000 people at max. It matches the number of voters, who didn't vote for the current president, to a large degree. People, who took to the streets, represent a very small minority,” the diplomat noted.
Yuri Ambrazevich also responded to accusations addressed to Belarusian authorities over police brutality and abuse of force and wrongdoings on the part of law enforcement agencies. In his words, all the accusations claiming people have been raped or disappeared by police are not backed by any written statements or proof. “These statements had only one goal: to discredit law enforcement agencies and the government and to infuriate the protesters. There are no political prisoners in Belarus. But about 2,500 criminal cases have been opened due to criminal behavior on the part of demonstrators, assaults on police officers, vandalism, disruptive behavior, and even the hounding of civil servants and their families by followers of the opposition,” the diplomat said.
Citizens have filed over 900 complaints about actions of law enforcement agencies. “But according to the Investigative Committee and the Interior Ministry, the complaints that have already been investigated contain no reasons to recognize the complaints as justified. Respectively, there is no evidence that allows qualifying the force that law enforcement officers used as excessive and illegal,” Yuri Ambrazevich noted.
“Life is always more complicated than it seems on TV. If we take a closer look, we will see that street rallies in Belarus since August have been dual. Protests have evolved into riots and there were forces interested in their emergence. These protests had been prepared and coordinated by various groups and information channels in social networks. So, the protests contained the aspects that we in Belarus qualify as attempts at insurrection,” the diplomat said.
