Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya met with Michael Carpenter during her visit to Vienna. She thanked the US Ambassador to the OSCE for the support of the Moscow Mechanism on Belarus and for joining the International Day of Solidarity with Political Prisoners.
The parties discussed possible steps for the release of political prisoners. They talked about the absence of reports from imprisoned political leaders, who have been kept in isolation for the past several months. Mr. Carpenter and Ms. Tsikhanouskaya discussed the regime’s complicity in the displacement of Ukrainian children from occupied territories to Belarus and potential legal measures to bring perpetrators to accountability. Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya proposed engaging all existing OSCE mechanisms and international courts, including the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court.
They also discussed the regime’s ongoing efforts to destroy the Belarusian national identity, violations of linguistic rights, and Russian domination of the media landscape. Ms. Tsikhanouskaya proposed holding events under the auspices of the OSCE on this issue in the coming months.
