On October 15, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya delivered the keynote speech at the Vilnius Freedom Summit, organized by Lithuania’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Freedom House. The summit brings together representatives of democratic governments, human rights defenders, former political prisoners, and civil society from Europe and Latin America.
Participants include:
- Kęstutis Budrys, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania;
- Jamie Fly, CEO of Freedom House;
- Ales Bialiatski, Chair and Founder of the Viasna Human Rights Center, Nobel Peace Prize laureate;
- Stanislav Aseyev, Ukrainian journalist and former prisoner at the Izolyatsia detention center in Donetsk;
- representatives of democratic movements in Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua.
The summit aims to develop practical recommendations for governments and international organizations on supporting democratic movements and protecting people from repression.
This year’s program focuses on two main topics:
- supporting political prisoners and human rights defenders: securing people’s release and ensuring their rehabilitation, legal status, and long-term support after their release;
- countering cooperation between authoritarian regimes: possible joint responses by Europe and the United States to the authoritarian regimes’ sharing of surveillance technologies and repressive methods, sanctions evasion, disinformation, and the persecution of people abroad.
In her speech, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya urged democratic countries to remain united and respond decisively to dictators’ actions:
“Dictators are trying to divide us. They are testing our countries’ unity. They are testing our solidarity. They are looking for our weak points so they can use them against us.
And the best response from democracies is to show our teeth. To show our strength. To support one another. For us Belarusians, as for many other nations, Europe is our goal. Europe is our family”.
