Impose curbs on Lukashenko allies, urges Tikhanovskaya

VILNIUS: Belarus opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya called on European leaders to impose targeted economic sanctions on supporters of President Alexander Lukashenko ater police stepped up violence against protesters.

Police in Minsk used tear gas, rubber bullets and stun grenades to disperse tens of thousands of demonstrators on Sunday, on the fourteenth straight weekend of protests since a disputed presidential election on Aug.9 that Lukashenko says he won.

Germany and the European Union (EU) are looking into ways to increase pressure on the Belarusian leadership ater the Sunday crackdown, and the death last week of a 31-year-old anti-government protester ater what demonstrators said was a severe beating by security forces.

Tikhanovskaya called for an international inquiry into the death.

On a visit to Stockholm for talks with Swedish Foreign Minister Ann Linde, Tikhanovskaya pleaded for “an international investigation.” “If we have no law in our country, if we have no justice in our country, we are appealing for international help and countries where democracy prevails, where law prevails, to try to help us,” she said.

“We will see if it is possible, but I am sure that it has to be done,” she added.

Tsikhanouskaya, who fled to Vilnius in Lithuania ater the vote which she says she won, urged the EU to move towards “targeted financial sanctions against people and individuals who are in the pockets of Lukashenko.” “Only economical pressure will make this regime step away, because they will not have money to pay for riot police and their crimes,” she said in an interview on Tuesday during a visit to Stockholm. Poland and Lithuania are pushing for further EU sanctions on Belarus, including companies and more individuals, Lithuanian president Gitanas Nauseda said on Tuesday ater meeting Polish counterpart Andrzej Duda in Vilnius.

“This is because the current sanctions did not provide the result we hoped for,” Nauseda said.

Latvian foreign ministered gars rinke vic st wee ted on Monday that his country would soon, together with Lithuania and Estonia, expand sanctions on Belarus officials “to include those who continue to violently suppress peaceful protests.”