Ales Bialiatski Urged US State Department To Draw "Red Line" For Belarusian Authorities

The human rights defender has told the U.S. Deputy Secretary of State about the situation in the country after the "elections".

On the eve of the 26th summit of the OSCE foreign ministers, held on December 4 in Bratislava, the chairman of the Human Rights Center Viasna Ales Beliatski met with Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor within the United States Department of State, Robert Destro, the website spring96.org reports.

During the conversation, Ales Bialiatski described in detail the results of the elections to the "house of representatives" of Belarus, characterized them as undemocratic and questioned the legitimacy of the appointed, rather than elected, "deputies".

The human rights defender also drew attention to the wave of pressure and repression that literally hit public activists and journalists of independent media shortly after the "elections".

According to Bialiatski, the possibility of signing agreements with Russia, unknown in terms of content, may lead to mass protests, which, in turn, will cause sharp increase of repressions on the part of the authorities and deterioration of the human rights situation in general.

The human rights activist urged the U.S. Department of State to forestall the possibility of new political prisoners in Belarus.

"This must be a "red line," which the authorities in no case step over," - the human rights defender said.