In a resolution, adopted with 626 votes in favour, 16 against and 36 abstentions, MEPs strongly condemn the “Ryanair hijacking” as an act of ‘state terrorism’, and call for Raman Pratasevich and European Humanities University (EHU) student Sofia Sapega, as well as all other political prisoners and journalists in Belarus, to be immediately and unconditionally released.
The European Parliament calls on the European External Action Service (EEAS), the Commission and the Member States’ national diplomatic representations in Belarus to closely monitor the situation and trials of individual political prisoners in Belarus, including those of Raman Pratasevich and EHU student Sofia Sapega, to offer them support and to work to secure their release; in this regard, calls on the Lukashenka regime to put an immediate end to any actions tending to intimidate or harass the members of national and European diplomatic services, in line with Belarus’s international obligations under the Vienna Conventions on Diplomatic and Consular Relations.
Additionally, MEPs call on the Member States and the European Commission “to provide financial support to those exiled institutions, such as the European Humanities University in Vilnius, that are nurturing a new generation of Belarusians who are challenging the country’s corrupt and illegitimate system”.
MEPs strongly condemn and demand an immediate end to the violence and repression by state authorities in Belarus, and in particular the unlawful detention, the torture and the ill-treatment in detention, and the criminal prosecution of peaceful citizens and express its support and solidarity with Belarusian society.
EHU welcomes the resolution of the European Parliament on Belarus, adopted on June 10. Currently, among recognized political prisoners in Belarus are EHU students Sofia Sapega, Maryja (Marfa) Rabkova, Akihiro Gaevski-Hanada, and graduates Mikalai Dziadok, Wlodzimierz Malachowski.