Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya had a call with British Foreign Minister Dominic Raab. This is the second conversation between the Belarusian leader and the head of the British Foreign Ministry.
Ms. Tsikhanouskaya and Mr. Raab discussed the situation in Belarus, the latest events – the arrest of Raman Pratasevich and Sofia Sapega, the attempted suicide of Stsiapan Latypau in the courtroom. Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya thanked the politician for the British reaction to the regime’s hijacking in Belarus. She also highlighted the need to investigate the incident, to seek the release of all political prisoners, to support the work of the platform to collect and preserve evidence of gross human rights violations in Belarus. The G7 Summit, hosted by the United Kingdom this month, is an important platform for political discussion of the crisis in Belarus. The G7 Foreign Ministers have already issued a communique condemning the arrest of Raman Pratasevich and Sofia Sapega.
Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya called:
– to strengthen sanctions against the Lukashenka's regime by including to the lists civil aviation officials, representatives of the regime and its purses, state-owned enterprises sponsoring the regime;
– to hold a high-level conference on the resolution of the crisis in Belarus;
– to keep the topic of Belarus on the international agenda, talk about the crisis in international organizations – the United Nations and the OSCE, and also during the G20 summit in the autumn;
– to support independent media in connection with the mass repression of journalists, the attack on TUT.by and other publishers. Another form of support could be the creation of a Belarusian BBC service in London to cover Belarusian issues.
