Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya and the German Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs, Annalena Baerbock, wrote a joint op-ed for the German publication WELT. It focuses on the continuous repressions that thousands of people face inside the country every day, discusses the measures taken by the EU to protect Belarusians, and argues for a European future for Belarus after the democratic transition.
Here are the most striking quotes from the op-ed.
📌 “What often escapes public attention in the shadow of Putin’s brutal imperialism is that the apparatus of power in Belarus, too, is a repressive and aggressive regime. A dictatorship, not a victim of Putin. The suffering of the people there did not begin in 2020; they have been living without freedom for decades”.
📌 “As different as our stories are, we are united by a clear conviction – that every human being has the right to be free. That it is not a crime to take to the streets to express one’s opinion. And that every society should be able to choose by whom it is governed”.
📌 “This freedom is the foundation of our peaceful Europe. It is for this freedom that the people in Belarus took to the streets in 2020”.
📌 “We will not sit by and watch as the people in Belarus disappear behind a new Iron Curtain. These people belong to Europe. They are Europeans. And so we will not give up the hope of a free, independent Belarus”.
Read the full op-ed in German at the link. You can also read the English version here.
