20 September 2012, 16:12

Lithuania and Germany laid claims against Belarus

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania expressed regret with regard to a denied visa to Lithuanian Deputy Emanuelis Zingeris, who was going to monitor the Parliamentary elections in Belarus together with the OSCE mission, as was stated in the published by the Lithuanian authority statement.

As the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania considers, the selective approach for visa issuing for the elections observers causes serious doubts in the Belarus’ openness to the values of the freedom of election and democracy, which the OSCE support, as well as in the execution of the international obligations by Belarus. These measures do not facilitate the opportunity of reopening the dialogue between the EU and Belarus, as pointed out the Lithuanian Foreign Ministry.

Belarus denied a visa to the Head of the Foreign Affairs Committee of Lithuanian Seimas Emanuelis Zingeris, as DELFI reports.

According to Emanuelis Zingeris, the fact of visa denial to the Head of the Foreign Affairs Committee of Lithuanian Seimas is indicative and shows that nothing has changed in Belarus. He said that it is not for the first time that he was denied a Belarusian visa because of his statements about the nature of Alexander Lukashenko’s regime.

The Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Germany called for Belarusian Ambassador

Deputy of the German party “Alliance '90/The Greens” Mariluise Beck and the reporter of the German TV channel ZDF Anna Gelinnek were also denied visas. With regard to that the German Foreign Ministry invited Belarusian Ambassador to Germany Andrei Giro for negotiation on September 20th, reports Deutsche Welle.

As the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Germany informed, during the meeting the Ambassador was told that visa denials to the elections observers and journalists are not clear to the German authorities.

The restrictions of the media freedom, entry bans and obstacles to civil society on the threshold of the Parliamentary elections are “a negative warning and another blow to the Belarusian society,” said the representative of the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Germany.

As Telegraf reported, when commenting of the visa denial to two OSCE observers, the Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Savinykh said that the entry of those foreigners in Belarus is unwanted.