Picture: Iryna Bogdanova and Christian Holm

I am at the moment in Vienna for the winter meeting with the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly. Today we have had interesting seminars and discussions with the american Bill Browder that spoke about the killing of Sergei Magnitsky and Russian violation of human rights. Eugenia Tymoshenko spoke about the political imprisonment of her mother Julia Tymoshenko by the leadership in Ukraine. Iryna Bogdanova, sister of former Belarusian presidential candidate Andrei Sannikov, spoke about the Belarusian violation of human rights and the situation and torture of her brother.

After the first session we had a meeting with the OSCE PA working group on Belarus where I am a member and the working group is focusing on the problematic situation in Belarus. At the meeting we got an update on the development in Belarus and discussed what we can do to change the situation as we can see that the violations of human rights continues and is intensified.

It is important that we send a clear message  to the regime that the situation is totally unacceptable and urge on an immediate release and rehabilitation of the political prisoners. We always have to show that we stand behind and support the people of Belarus and their right to live in a free and democratic country.

The situation in Belarus is worrying and we all from the international community seriously have to consider what further actions we can undertake.More people responsible for violations of human rights should be added to the visa ban list and more economic sanctions should be imposed.

We are concerned about and support the political prisoners such as Andrei Sannikov, Mikalaj Statkievic and Zmitser Dashkevich as well as all the other political prisoners inside Belarus. The imprisonment of the internationally well recognized human rights activist Ales Bialiatski is also a big concern for us. They should all be immediately released. Please help in supporting the political prisoners in Belarus.