Western nations need to tighten sanctions on Belarus to put pressure on President Alexander Lukashenko to restore democracy and end worsening repression, opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya told the Financial Times ahead of a visit to the UK.
That visit comes as Belarusian athlete Krystsina Tsimanouskaya sought refuge at the Olympics in Japan after she said Belarusian officials tried to make her board a flight home against her will after she criticised her coaches on social media.
Tsikhanouskaya said what happened to the Olympic runner was part of a wider crackdown against athletes in Belarus. Olympic authorities have banned Lukashenko from attending the Tokyo Games and frozen payments to the country’s Olympic Committee after Belarusian athletes accused his regime of political discrimination and imprisonment.
“Since August, dozens of athletes have been jailed, fired and forced to flee the country,” she said, adding that any criticism was seen as an attack on the government. “No athlete can feel safe — neither in Belarus nor abroad.”
Tsikhanouskaya now wants to enlist support from UK prime minister Boris Johnson to remove sanctions exemptions, which she says have blunted their impact, during a trip to London on Tuesday. This follows a 15-day tour in the US in which she met President Joe Biden.
“We’re going to the UK to raise attention . . . to close loopholes in European sanctions,” she said. Tsikhanouskaya said incremental pressure would only lead to a more repressive path by the regime that “will be longer, with more victims”.
Downing Street declined to comment.
About 35,000 people have been arrested in Belarus, including Tsikhanouskaya’s husband Sergei Tikhanovsky, since the August 2020 polls, which were widely seen as flawed. Tikhanovsky was detained before the elections, prompting Tsikhanouskaya to run for the presidency in his place.
Ukrainian police on Tuesday said Belarusian activist Vitaly Shyshov, head of the Kyiv-based Belarus House, a support group for political refugees, was found hanged in a park
Speaking on Ukrainian television, an acquaintance and fellow Belarus refugee who identified himself by the first name Yuriy ruled out suicide, pointing out that Shyshov had a broken nose.
“I suspect this was the action of the [Belarus] KGB . . . we knew they were hunting for us,” Yuriy said.
Western powers have threatened to escalate pressure on Belarus but have so far taken only incremental steps. Among recent moves, the UK, EU, US and Canada in June imposed asset freezes and travel bans on some Belarusians associated with the regime as punishment for the forced landing of a Ryanair plane in May. Belarusian authorities diverted the plane to Minsk, claiming there was a security threat, in order to arrest a dissident and his girlfriend.
The UK’s sanctions have also targeted a Belarusian oil product exporter, while the EU has imposed sectoral sanctions targeting insurance, tobacco, petroleum products and potash exports that make up a significant part of Belarusian revenues.
Tsikhanouskaya said she was grateful for extensive support from the international community since she fled Belarus last year after she was threatened with arrest following the disputed presidential election. But she argued that exclusions had significantly blunted the impact of the measures and is urging European powers to tighten existing sectoral sanctions and impose more.
“Of course our beloveds, our relatives, are in jails in awful conditions, being humiliated,” she said.
She also wants Washington to impose more extensive sanctions, arguing such measures — if co-ordinated — would be one of the most powerful ways of putting pressure on Lukashenko’s regime.
“Now it’s such a huge level of repression; every day, the number of political prisoners is increasing,” she said. She added that owing to the crackdown, she was not calling for street demonstrations on August 9, which marks a year since the elections.
During her visit to the US, Tsikhanouskaya also met secretary of state Antony Blinken, national security adviser Jake Sullivan, USAID chief Samantha Power and other senior members of the Biden administration.
“We discussed . . .[how the US] can be helpful in this fight between autocracy and democracy,” she said, adding that the main message she received from US officials was a willingness to “create multiple points of pressure on the regime”.
The Biden administration said in May that it would issue an executive order to give the US increased sanctions authority in Belarus, but has yet to impose sanctions under it. Sullivan indicated following his meeting with Tsikhanouskaya that more sanctions were forthcoming.
Biden made no mention of sanctions but endorsed Tsikhanouskaya’s mission, saying in a tweet after their meeting: “The United States stands with the people of Belarus in their quest for democracy and universal human rights.”
Tsikhanouskaya said Biden had also asked after her husband during a “warm and human” meeting. “I just want to tell him: ‘Do not stop believing’,” she said of her husband. “I want him to know the whole world is with him.”
She also visited UN officials in New York, as well as diaspora figures, academics and corporate leaders in San Francisco and Los Angeles, some of whom expressed interest in investing in Belarus in the coming years.
“We are in the process of revolution but we have to think about the future,” she said.
Additional reporting by Jasmine Cameron-Chileshe in London and Roman Olearchyk in Kyiv
For all the latest Business News Click Here
For the latest news and updates, follow us on Google News.