Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

On behalf of the Labour Party, I support the motion, which is in the name of the committee, that I hope will be passed by all Members.

Belarus is not a nation that we have traditionally had extensive dealings with, but many of us have publicly supported the democratic rallies that followed last year's patently fraudulent presidential election. We supported publicly and in this House the sanctions taken by the EU against the Lukashenko regime's violent action against peaceful demonstrators. What is probably the most oppressive regime in continental Europe is a cause of shame for us all.

The forced landing of a Ryanair flight between two EU capitals and the arrest of two of its passengers - Mr. Protasevich, a democracy campaigner and journalist, and his partner, Ms Sapega - dramatically refocused our attention. Apart from a general level of shock at such an outrageous act of state-sponsored hijacking of a European airline in European airspace, it is clear that the objective of this action was not only to remove a journalist and his travel companion, but to terrorise any citizen who is critical of Lukashenko and his oppressive regime. The Belarusian authorities subsequently released two videos, one of Mr. Protasevich and the other of Ms Sapega, each allegedly confessing to crimes of organising illegal demonstrations against the regime or other criminal actions.

Lukashenko has been in power for 26 years. He is an authoritarian ruler who, before last year's elections, had one eye on what Russia was doing in the annexation of parts of Ukraine and made some outreach to the European Union. Now, he plainly believes that he can take this action without significant consequences. Following last year’s fraudulent elections, the European Union declared those elections to be just that. Lukashenko dismissed the sanctions that were imposed and obviously came to the conclusion that the EU itself, in response to his actions, was largely toothless. He was emboldened, therefore, to feel that he could act to intercept a flight of EU citizens between Athens and Vilnius and to consider that that was fair game for him.

The motion before the House urges the European Union, Council and Commission to continue to monitor the situation. Most people in this House strongly feel that we need to do much more than that. A clearly petrified journalist was bundled off an internal European Union flight. He and all of the passengers who boarded that plane in Athens were entitled to feel safe and that they would not be intercepted by a foreign nation and that the authority of the European Union itself would protect them. I welcome the actions taken to date and the actions or own Government in convening a series of meetings. We must be prepared to do more.

Specifically, we must harness whatever international pressure is necessary to free Roman Protasevich and the Sofia Sapega. Those people are among hundreds of political prisoners, many of whom have been tortured, in Lukashenko’s Belarus. They entrusted their safety to the European Union. They boarded a flight in a European capital en routeto another in a European-registered aeroplane. We must mount whatever diplomatic and economic pressure is required until they are both freed.

We also need to know if Russia was involved in any way in this illegal hijacking. As well as expressing the outrage of the Irish Government and people to the Belarus Embassy in London, about which he told the House, I ask the Minister whether questions were also put to the Russian Ambassador here. If so, what response was received?

We have seen in recent times a number of horrendous actions by state agents hijacking citizens who expressed opposition to their regimes. We saw the brutal murder of an opponent of the Saudi leadership in a consulate building in Turkey. This week we also saw the taking of a critic of the Turkish Government itself from the streets of Kenya. These are outrageous acts and we need to act as an international community to ensure that they do not reoccur.

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