Nick Clegg: Pressure on Lukashenka’s regime should be increased

Belarus is equal to North Korea, Zimbabwe and Iran, but it is situated in the centre of Europe.

Polish mass media publish a number of articles on the occasion of the Eastern Partnership summit opening, and much attention is paid to Belarus there as well.

“Gazeta Wyborcza” has published a feature of the Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Nick Clegg under a title: “Belarus: Europe’s Shameful Secret”. The British politician writes:

“I offer to imagine a country where tortures and intimidation of people are a daily routine. Where peacefully protesting people are arrested and sent to penal colonies of reinforced regime, where journalists who demonstrate freedom of thought are persecuted. Where a president can manipulate another election though he had brought the economy to the state of collapse. Where the majority is too intimidated to express their own thoughts, and where death penalty is still used. It could be North Korea, Zimbabwe and Iran. But this country is closer to us, to Europe. It is Belarus, where Lukashenka’s regime is holding the power by a strong hand, paying no attention at all to human rights.”

The Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in detail tells the story of reprisals against silent protest rallies participants.

“The Soviet Union collapsed 20 years ago. We, Europeans, believed that dangerous dictators would stay in the past, and freedom and democracy would flourish. However, Belarus has got trapped in the past, it is a shameful secret of Europe, here, near our porch. That is why I am completely sure that we should increase pressure on the regime. Our government in Poland will show solidarity with the nation of Belarus. The Great Britain will not allow dragging Belarus into the grim times. Europe has gone too far to allow that,” the Deputy Prime Minister of the UK Nick Clegg writes.