EU should have forced more concessions from Belarus before lifting sanctions - diplomat

Death penalty is not prohibited by international law, Valyantsin Rybakou, a representative of the The Belarusian Foreign Ministry, said at the UN-organised conference ‘Death Penalty: Transcending the Divide’ in Minsk on Thursday.

Speaking at the conference, Deputy Foreign Minister Valyantsin Rybakoг claimed that a majority of the Belarusian people still support the death penalty. He cited the results of the 1996 referendum and public opinion polls.

“The majority of Belarusian citizens voted in favor of keeping the death penalty in the referendum in 1996. Repeated opinion polls, which were held in the country, suggest that the death penalty continues to be differently perceived in the society and still has a majority of supporters. This fact cannot be ignored and will not be, including in the context of the dialogue with our respected European partners,” state-run news agency BelTA quotes Rybakou as saying.

In his turn, Stavros Lambrinidis, the European Union’s special representative for human rights, stressed that civilized countries should stay above revenge and abolish the death penalty.

Mr. Lambrinidis expressed puzzlement that Belarus was still applying the death penalty whereas 28 other European countries had already stopped executing prisoners. According to Mr. Lambrinidis, t he number of abolitionist countries has increased from nine in 1965 to 16 in 1978 and more than 150 in 2016.

Karel Schwarzenberg, a former Foreign Minister of the Czech Republic and an active supporter of the abolition of the death penalty, is also taking part in the conference. On March 9, he met with relatives of Syarhei Khmyaleuski and Henadz Yakavitski who were sentenced to death in 2016. The Czech Ambassador in Belarus, human rights activists and Lyubou Kavaliova, the mother of Uladzislau Kavaliou, who was executed in 2012, were present at the meeting.

According to Schwarzenberg, Minsk is ready to back down on the issue of calling a moratorium or even abolishing the death penalty.

“We know that Belarus is facing a difficult financial situation now, therefore, some progress in the field of ​​human rights is possible,” the diplomat told Belarusian news site tut.by.

In his opinion, the EU should have lifted its sanctions against Belarus only after our country’s introducing a moratorium on the capital.

“I’m a diehard sceptic, I would prefer some equivalent exchange – one concession in exchange for one concession. Of course, Minsk released political prisoners, but this is far from enough. It was not right to cancel all the sanctions after that move,” Schwarzenberg pointed out.

belsat.eu, following tut.by, belapan.by