Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire. Sometimes the facts speak for themselves. In an election in August 2020, Alexander Lukashenko got 80% of the vote. This is his sixth term in office, having first been elected in 1994. This is a man who relies on fear in order to stay in office. Any voices of dissent, whether online or in the streets, are found, beaten, jailed and tortured. There are 650 political prisoners in Belarus today. Indeed, the mass demonstrations in the months after the 2020 election are no longer taking place because people fear arrest and torture. It is a situation that is chillingly reminiscent of the quietening of protests in Hong Kong in recent times. As bizarre as it sounds, a person can be arrested in Belarus for walking down the street wearing any combination of red and white clothing, those being the colours of the original flag of Belarus which has been adopted by those seeking change. That is what happened to Natalia Sivtsova-Sedushkina.

The Minister is familiar with, and my colleague, Senator Ward, mentioned, the outlandish and outrageous forced landing of a Ryanair aircraft in Minsk last May and the capture and imprisonment of journalist Roman Protasevich. The impunity and brazenness in respect of that one-way flight to Minsk really caught people's imaginations because it is reminiscent of a time that we thought was long gone in Europe.

The Minister is familiar with reports of the staged hanging of Vitaly Shisov, a dissident, in a park in Ukraine last August. He led an organisation in Ukraine that helped Belarusians fleeing persecution in their homeland. His death showed that, just like Russian dissidents, Belarusian dissidents will be pursued wherever they run, with little regard for the laws of the countries in which these outrages occur. His death reminded us of the poisoning of the Skripals in Salisbury in 2018.

The church in Belarus has not escaped the wrath of Lukashenko and his regime. A bishop was refused permission to re-enter the country as he was believed to have been critical of the regime. Priests are being detained and accusations of incitement are being made against them. I saw recently the horrible caricaturing of Catholic clergy in the Minskaya Pravdanewspaper which depicted crosses being turned into swastikas. That is an example of the hateful propaganda of a hard left, hard Communist regime.

Since the election last year, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the rightful victor, who has visited Ireland, has met with more than 30 heads of state, as well as the Minister, to make the case for free and fair elections in Belarus. It is important to note that she does not wish to be President of Belarus. The only thing she seeks is the holding of free and fair elections and would thereafter depart office. She only ran for the presidency because her husband, who sought to be a candidate in the election, was jailed in advance of the campaign. She is widely accepted as having won the presidential election. As was noted, she visited Ireland in July 2021 and met the Deane family, who hosted her in Roscrea in the 1990s as one of the Chernobyl children.

In an initiative that shows solidarity with the people of Belarus, Members of the Houses of the Oireachtas have adopted several political prisoners. I was not part of that initiative but I strongly support and commend all those involved. Ireland, principally through the Taoiseach and the Minister, has been supportive of Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya and her calls for the release of all political prisoners and the running of free and fair elections.The European Union has played its part in co-ordinating with the US, the UK and other nations in devising sanctions against Belarus.

Of course, we cannot forget that Russian President Vladimir Putin is central to this story. Belarus is viewed by him as being strategically important to Russia's security and Russia has a number of military bases in Belarus. He has been pushing Belarus to formalise their alliance in a way that would result in Belarus effectively becoming part of Russia once more as in the days of the USSR. It is horrible to think that in order to punish its former Soviet bloc nation colleagues on its western borders, including Poland, Lithuania and Latvia, the Lukashenko regime has effectively been bussing refugees from the Middle East and Africa to the western border, trying to stoke a fresh migrant crisis by sending them to those neighbouring countries.

We can think of what action is needed. Lukashenko only remains in office because he has the military and financial support of Putin, and without Russia's military and financial support, the regime would have fallen by now. In addition to applying pressure on Lukashenko, therefore, pressure must also be applied on the Russians to allow the people of Belarus the space and freedom to choose their own leader, although I admit this is a much harder task. The EU must devise a further round of tougher economic sanctions, and I understand a fifth round of sanctions has already been planned. Last August, the International Monetary Fund, IMF, granted $1 billion to Belarus in a move that was grossly out of step with the strategy being adopted by the EU and the US. We need consistency, and I will return to this point about consistency in a moment. Ireland and the EU must assist with efforts to bring about the initiation of a criminal prosecution against Lukashenko and his regime. Critically, we must use our seat on the UN Security Council and make Belarus a key priority.

I will conclude by speaking about the need for consistency and our stepping up to use our UN role as much as possible. I have criticised the Minister and his Government in a respectful spirit and not in a personal way because of an apparent inconsistency in the way different countries with deeply problematic human rights situations are treated. Senator Barry Ward correctly commended the Minister on being here in person for this debate. It is important to remind the Minister nonetheless that the Seanad unanimously passed a motion calling on Ireland to use all diplomatic and trade channels to put pressure on China over what is happening in Xinjiang - we might add Hong Kong to that - and the terrible persecution of countless people in the country for religious and other ethnic reasons. It seems harder to get a consistent and strong answer out of the Government on that. I have warned in this House that it must not be a nod to human rights on one hand and a wink to trade on the other.

I know that is hard and it is harder to be a Minister with responsibilities for such matters than it is to be an Independent Senator. The Minister's instincts are solid and good so I have confidence in saying he will be at his strongest when he is consistent. Ireland will be at its strongest when it is consistent on the question of human rights. Mr. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the theologian and anti-Nazi martyr, warned about the concept of cheap grace, and a modern secular equivalent might be that of virtue signalling or the idea that we go in hard when it does not cost us. When it comes to defending human rights on the international stage, we must go in hard anyway, even if there is a cost. We must be vocal on the question of Iran and China. I say this as a son of the land and I care about our exports. Human rights cannot be sacrificed on the altar or our prosperity. I want the Minister to follow with the same consistent strength he has on Belarus in those other fora.

As the Minister's instincts are so good, I will make a final request of him. I do not intend to revisit what happened with the appointment of a special envoy but many countries and the EU have led the way in establishing an envoy for freedom of religion and belief. That is a much more established type of envoy as many people are being prosecuted for religious beliefs and for not having such religious belief. I will write to the Minister on that subject because it would be a great initiative for the Government to take. It would be a great response to the recent controversy and it could unite all sides of the Houses as well.