• News
  • Office
  • New Belarus
  • Partners
  • Contacts
  • News
  • Office
  • New Belarus
  • Partners
  • Contacts
  • Chair Conclusions of the Second Kalinowski Forum

    March 23, 2021

    Chair Conclusions of the Second International Kalinauskas Conference

    (Kalinauskas / Каліно́ўскі / Kalinowski Forum)

    Vilnius, 22 March 2021

    Organisers and participants of Kalinauskas Forum after debating with participants the support to Belarusian freedom, free and democratic elections in 2021 and the Summit of Democracies conclude:

    • We acknowledge exceptional determination and steadfastness of Belarusian society for their daily peaceful protests, which are met with an increasingly aggressive response from the state apparatus. We condemn the ongoing human rights violations and brutality of the Belarussian authorities against peaceful protesters. We express condolences to the families of victims and repressed.
    • We support the call of Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the leader elected by the Belarusian people, for the peaceful resolution of the political crisis via mediated negotiations and for creating an international accountability mechanism for human rights violations in Belarus.
    • New elections under international supervision should take place in 2021. To agree on the conduct of new elections negotiations should take place. UN/OSCE should take a lead and consider providing a platform for mediated negotiations.
    • We encourage the Swedish Chairpersonship 2021 at the OSCE to take a leading role in facilitating inclusive dialogue through negotiations and free and fair conduct of the ensuing elections.
    • International organizations and friends of Belarus should demand an immediate end to state violence, unconditional release of all political prisoners and a safe return of exiled Belarusians.
    • International democratic community should impose stronger sanctions until the demand for dialogue is met. The current sanction regime as established by the three packages of EU sanctions, European Magnitsky Act, US Belarus Democracy and Human Rights Act signals support for democratic principles by targeting individuals who partook in election fraud or systemic human rights abuses. However, further sanctions should become an active pressure tool by specifically targeting the regime's financial enablers.
    • While Belarus is not a party to the Council of Europe and Rome Statute, impunity for mass tortures and killings needs a strong reactions. There is a pressing need for an international investigation of the human rights abuses backed by governments and organizations such as the UN and the OSCE to ensure accountability. OSCE's Moscow Mechanism, UN Human Rights Council resolution and UN Security Council Arria Formula statements, conclusions of UN special rapporteurs, as well as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights underscore the critical situation of human rights and democracy, state-backed brutality of Belarusian authorities suppressing peaceful demonstrators, persecuting activists, human rights defenders, journalists, and political opposition.
    • International organizations and countries that stand in solidarity with the Belarusian people should ensure that international support reaches speedily independent media, human rights defenders, civil society organisations, workers, and small businesses on the ground in Belarus. There is a need to develop and announce a Comprehensive Support Plan for Belarus that would secure macro-economic support for the transition period after free and fair elections take place.
    • Participants of this conference can initiate an international coalition of stakeholders, government representatives, legislators, and expert communities to develop a roadmap for the resolution of the crisis. Parliaments of countries that stand in solidarity with the Belarusian people should form the inter-parliamentary union “For Democratic Belarus” to keep Belarus on the local and international agenda. In this vein, we reiterate our request to the European Parliament to establish a High-Level mission to assist with the peaceful transition in Belarus. We also urge the Council of Europe to establish a permanent working group with representatives both from the Parliamentary Assembly and the Committee of Ministers to defend human rights, democracy and rule of law in Belarus.
    • Due to the fact that Belarus has started exploitation of the unsafe Belarusian-Russian nuclear power plant (NPP) in Astravyets, only 45 km from the Lithuanian capital Vilnius, in a site which was chosen and still is in a breach of the Espoo convention and IAEA safety standards without full implementation of the EU stress tests recommendations, we urge the European and international community to take a firm stance and proclaim the Belarusian NPP at the current location in Astravyets District as unacceptable and to refuse entrance of unsafely produced commercial energy at the Belarusian NPP to the EU energy market.
    Last news