Ms Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya:

I thank members. I appreciate the warm words they expressed to me and the Belarusian people, who are fighting and suffering. Some of them sacrificed their freedom, health and lives to give us an opportunity to continue this fight. They are counting on Belarusians and the international community because we are fighting for democratic changes in Belarus.

I have heard two main questions about assistance and sanctions. On the one hand, to make our fight sustainable we have to support civil society on the ground who had to flee the country because of violence there. Democratic countries have to support civil society in Belarus at this moment because it is difficult for political prisoners, their families and different organisations inside the country, including those who had to flee the country. As members know, all independent mass media was destroyed in Belarus and they had to move to Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine to continue their activity to show the reality in Belarus to other people. Somehow, they have to live and if the international community will support mass media abroad and that is still left in Belarus, we would appreciate this step.

I mention human rights defenders also. Yesterday there was a massive attack on human rights defending organisations in Belarus and many of their leaders have been imprisoned. There was a question about the number of political prisoners. At the moment it is 555 people but there is no one left in Belarus who can recognise people as political prisoners because they are in prison already. Human rights defending centres need assistance as well. I ask all countries and Ireland in particular, on a bilateral or European Union level, to increase assistance to the civil society of Belarus. For people to survive, not to lose hope and to continue the fight, they badly need this assistance. I am sure members know about this and will do everything possible to continue this assistance.

I refer to sanctions. We understand that sanctions are not a silver bullet and that they will not bring our country to democracy. However, sanctions are leverage to help stop the violence in Belarus. We already had such precedence in Belarusian history when sanctions and even the threat of same helped political prisoners to be released. Since August, we tried to appeal to the regime on a diplomatic level through the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, OSCE, different NGOs, mediators and personalities but the regime was closed, it bunkered and it did not answer these calls. Therefore, sanctions were the adequate answer to the violence, torture in prisons and ill treatment of Belarusians. Since December, there was no big conference on the Belarusian question. Those beautiful pictures of peaceful demonstrations disappeared because the regime, with the help of violence and guns, succeeded in suppressing all those wonderful people. The pictures disappeared, attention on the Belarusian question decreased a little bit and Lukashenko felt impunity. He thought that democratic society forgot about Belarusians, he felt impunity and that is why this hijacking happened. I am sure the response of the European Union in closing the airspace above Belarus and imposing a fourth package of sectoral sanctions was rather adequate and normal.

Propaganda might spread the message that sanctions will influence ordinary people and not the regime. That is not true because people are already suffering. They are not suffering because of sanctions but because of violence, torture and lawlessness in our country. Sanctions hit the regime first of all and people in the last turn. Lukashenko and his regime are so afraid of people rising up and of workers striking that he will decrease the wages of those workers in the last turn. He is afraid of everything, he is cornered and he understands that he is economically and politically isolated. He is toxic to western countries. After he started to take revenge on Lithuania and after he started to send illegal migrants to the Belarusian and Lithuanian border, I am sure the European Union will be stronger in its position and will impose a fifth package of sanctions on the Belarusian regime. It is impossible to look at this house in our country and not answer.

Sanctions can change the behaviour of Lukashenko and end the violence. Also, sanctions can split the elites. For sanctions to be strong, they should be joint. Europe, the United Kingdom, the USA and Ukraine have to impose sanctions together. Sanctions should be probed and include a wide range of people who are responsible for the violence in our country and for the enterprises and companies that are wallets of Lukashenko. Sanctions have to be conditional so they should be imposed until new elections will be held in our country. Before new elections, we have to release all political prisoners, start dialogue with the regime and after new elections happen, some sanctions will be lifted. These are the conditions of the sanctions.

The fourth package of sectoral sanctions left loopholes for followers of Lukashenko. These loopholes need to be closed. Sanctions cannot be bypassed by cronies of the regime.

There was a question about Roman Protasevich. He is under house arrest now. That is not equal to freedom. He still faces criminal charges. He is under investigation. He said that he is in a house but that he is observed by KGB people all the time. His parents cannot communicate with him. It is not freedom. He can be used by the KGB as it wants. He is a victim of this regime. He is a hostage. We have to do everything possible to release him and other people as soon as possible.

There was a question about state control of the media. The regime destroyed all the independent media in Belarus. Journalists and editors-in-chief are in prisons. Local newspapers and other media forms are closed or had to flee the country. They are trying to restore their activity. New ways of delivering information appeared. People have to be creative. We are communicating through telecommunications channels. New YouTube channels appear to deliver information for those inside the country. Lukashenko wants to silence everybody inside Belarus and for no information to reach people on the ground. Civil society is creative. People are smart and we are looking for new ways to restore independent media, if not inside Belarus then at least outside it, to tell about the situation in Belarus. We have to come back to old methods of spreading information. Samizdat involves self-made newspapers which are widespread in villages, for those people who do not have access to the Internet. They show the truth because propaganda is working hard to show democratic activists in a poor way. We are struggling with this. We do our best.