Belarus must urgently set up a national dialogue including civil society to come out peacefully from the current crisis, urged officials of the Council of Europe on Wednesday, judging that "legitimacy cannot come from repression".
Read also: Belarus: the president orders the army to defend territorial integrity
In a joint statement, the secretary general of the pan-European organization for the defense of human rights, Marija Pejcinovic Buric, the president of its parliamentary assembly, Rik Daems, and the Greek minister Miltiadis Varvitsiotis, whose country currently chairs the Council of Europe, call on the Belarusian authorities "to urgently engage in a broad and inclusive national dialogue". This "should make it possible to guarantee a peaceful exit from the current crisis and to open the door to the necessary reforms benefiting all Belarusian citizens" , add the three officials of the Strasbourg-based organization.
They demand "the immediate release of all detained demonstrators, the cessation of all ill-treatment and the opening of a rapid and transparent investigation into acts of brutality by the police". In another joint statement, European Union Vice-President Josep Borrell and Canadian Foreign Minister François-Philippe Champagne underlined Belarus' "international obligations" . "As a participating state of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Belarus is committed to holding genuinely democratic elections and defending human rights and fundamental freedoms , " said they estimated.
Josep Borrell and François-Philippe Champagne added that they supported the OSCE Chairmanship's mediation proposal, offering a visit to the Belarusian government. "We call on the Belarusian authorities to accept this proposal without delay," they said. Belarus, which is experiencing an unprecedented protest movement against President Alexander Lukashenko, in power since 1994, is "not yet" a full member of the Council of Europe, which has 47 members including Russia and Ukraine, but Minsk has signed and ratified over the years twelve treaties and protocols of the organization. "We all hope that one day Belarus will join our European family of common values by becoming a full member of the Council of Europe", which stands "ready to work" with the country to "help approximate legislation Belarusian European democratic standards , ” launch the organization's officials.