EP Presidnet considers Square participants’ sentences to be illegal
EP President Jerzy Buzek has criticized yesterday’s sentence pronounced to ex-presidential candidates Mikalai Statkevich and Dzmitry Us.
Let us remind you that Statkevich was sentenced to 6 years in a top security colony and Us – to 5.5 years of imprisonment.
UNIAN reports that Buzek said that the verdicts “showed the unfairness of the judicial system in Belarus”. According to the President of the European Parliament, opposition leaders “are standing up for a free and democratic Belarus. They stand against a Belarus where power is held in the hands of one man and his regime. ” He called for the immediate release of all political prisoners.
Jerzy Buzek reminded that the European Parliament had strongly condemned all convictions on the basis of the criminal charge of 'mass rioting' and found them arbitrary and politically motivated in its May 12 resolution. He also condemned that the trials were held behind closed doors and that detainees were denied the opportunity to call their witnesses.
“The EP considers all charges against the presidential candidates Uladzimir Nyaklyayeu, Vital Rymasheuski, Mikola Statkevich, Dzmitry Us and Andrei Sannikau to be illegal and inadmissible”, — claimed Jerzy Buzek.
