The Belarusian government's representative was ejected from Thursday's meeting in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) due to concerns that his presence could harm Belarusian NGO activists who were in attendance, Andres Herkel, PACE's special rapporteur on Belarus, told BelaPAN.
The unnamed official was told to leave the room at the beginning of the meeting of the PACE Committee on Political Affairs and Democracy.
“It was the committee chairperson's decision,” the Estonian politician said. “This man had not announced in advance that he was planning to attend the meeting. Some members of the committee felt that the representatives of Belarusian NGOs could not speak freely in his presence. This could be dangerous to them.”
Mr. Herkel referred to the imprisonment of human rights activist Alies Bialiacki, who spoke at the committee's meetings in the past.
The rapporteur told the committee's members about key developments in Belarus since the beginning of this year, including the execution of two men found guilty in the subway bombing case, the release of former presidential candidate Andrej Sannikau, the situation regarding other political prisoners, and September's elections for the House of Representatives.
“We spoke about them [the elections] at the meeting. We also discussed the fact that some PACE members had not been allowed to observe the elections in Belarus as part of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly's delegation,” Mr. Herkel said.
According to the rapporteur, PACE is expected to adopt a new resolution on Belarus in the first half of 2013.
When asked about the possibility of his trip to Belarus, Mr. Herkel said that the Belarusian authorities had not replied to his request for permission to visit the country made a year ago.
In addition, Mr. Herkel currently chairs the PACE Committee on the Honoring of Obligations and Commitments by Member States of the Council of Europe and high-level PACE members are prohibited from contacts with Minsk. If the Belarusian government allows Mr. Herkel to visit the country, he will have to seek permission for making the visit from the PACE Bureau.
Mr. Herkel welcomed the appointment of Miklos Haraszti as the UN Human Rights Council's rapporteur on Belarus.
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