The EU Announced Working on a New Sanctions Package against Belarus

Member of the European Commission (EC) Janez Lenarčič called the level of repression against the citizens of Belarus unprecedented, and the EU does not intend leaving this unpunished: work on a new package of sanctions against the Belarusian authorities has begun in Brussels. "After the elections (presidential, on August 9 - IF), more than 30 thousand people were arrested, more than 100 prisoners were recognized by the European Union as political. At least 500 cases of torture were documented and at least four people were killed," the European Commissioner Josep Borrell said, speaking on Thursday at the plenary session of the European Parliament on behalf of the head of EU diplomacy, interfax.ru reported. As a recent example, he cited the November 12 murder of 31-year-old Roman Bondarenko, who died as a result of serious injuries allegedly caused by plainclothes police. “This is another shameful result of the brutal repressions that the Belarusian authorities are carrying out against their own peacefully protesting people,” Lenarčič said. He said that the EU has begun preparatory work on the third package of sanctions in addition to restrictive measures "against 55 persons guilty of violent repression and electoral fraud that we have already adopted." “Finally, with regard to the so-called Magnitsky law, the (Euro) commission did its job. It sent a proposal to the Council (EU),” the EC member announced. He recalled the position of the EU stating that Belarusian "elections were neither free, nor fair, and Lukashenka has no democratic legitimacy." The EC member pointed as well to the continuing deterioration of the human rights situation. "There should be no impunity for violations of human rights, such as those that we see in Belarus", Lenarčič stressed. "Being the European Union, we are leading an international initiative to protect human rights and fundamental freedoms in Belarus," the European Commissioner said, recalling the role EU played in adopting the UN Human Rights Council resolution recommending to monitor the human rights situation in Belarus and its role in the use of the OSCE Moscow Mechanism on human rights violations in the republic. Protests in Belarus and Brussels' sanctions against Minsk For more than three months now, mass protests against the results of presidential elections held on August 9 have been going on in Belarus. The current head of state, Alexander Lukashenko, who has held this post since 1994, was declared winner. The opposition did not recognize elections results that authorities announced, and considers them to be falsified. The protesters demand Lukashenko’s resignation, political prisoners’ release and new elections holding. On November 5, 2020, expired Lukashenko's powers under the previous presidential mandate. Although Lukashenko’s unannounced inauguration took place in Minsk on September 23, the EU and the United States do not recognize him a legitimate president of Belarus, and in neighboring Ukraine they said that from November 5 they would only call him by his name without specifying his position. According to the EU Council decision dated November 6, 15 representatives of the Belarusian authorities, including Lukashenko himself, were added to the EU sanctions list. Earlier, the EU embargo to Belarus was extended on weapons and funds supplies that could be used for internal repression.