Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya held a meeting with Dutch human rights organizations cooperating with Belarus: the Dutch Helsinki Committee, Amnesty International, Justice and Peace, and Libereco.
At the meeting, they discussed:
– changing the criteria for the recognition of political prisoners in Belarus. The current criteria deny the status to many of those participating in the resistance movement;
– support for families and rehabilitation for the children of political prisoners, as well as for those of the latter released;
– a program to open shelters in European countries, including the Netherlands, to help the repressed and persecuted Belarusians fleeing the country find safe temporary housing. Such a program could help hundreds and thousands of people.
Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya stressed that political prisoners must not be a subject of trade with the regime in Belarus. All of them must be released, and the principled position of the Netherlands and other countries on this issue is important.
Also during her visit to the Netherlands, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya visited the So Far, Yet So Close exhibition, which featured paintings by Belarusian artists Vika Mitrichenko, Lena Davidovich, Tasha Arlova, Hanna Aksionava, Masha Maroz, Anna Sokolova, Maria Komarova and Sviatlana Silich.
