Seanad debates

Tuesday, 25 October 2022

An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business

 

2:30 pm

Photo of Barry WardBarry Ward (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy Leader will be aware that in the years since the sham presidential election in Belarus a number of Members of this House, the Dáil and the European Parliament have adopted Belarussian political prisoners. These people were imprisoned not because they had committed crimes but because they had somehow opposed or offended Lukashenko's regime. I adopted a man called Maksim Pauliuschynk who was sentenced to two and a half years for what I believe the Belarussian code terms "hooliganism". Essentially, he protested against the results of the so-called presidential election, which were widely discredited. I am happy to say he was released in May, although it did not come through any great insight the Belarussian authorities had into how wrong they were but because he had served the sentence he was given. Today I have adopted a new individual, a man called Uladzimir Niapomniashchykh. He is a 70-year-old man imprisoned for two and a half years in December 2020 for insulting an official. That is the level we are dealing with. It does not take much to be sent to prison in Belarus. It does not take much to offend the regime and be thrown behind bars in a very difficult situation. It is not the case that prison is enjoyable in any jurisdiction but there is a particularly harsh regime in Belarus and it is in reality being used as a tool of Lukashenko's shame regime. I encourage Members who have not yet done so to adopt political prisoners through the Libereco programme to ensure they put on record their opposition to Lukashenko and the dictatorship and autocracy he maintains in Belarus and to send a clear message Ireland does not stand in any way with the regime running Belarus, but against it and in opposition to what is happening there.

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