March 22, the Council of Europe has promulgated an expanded list of representatives of the Belarusian authorities under the European Union's visa sanctions. The list of banned has been replenished with 19 names of the Belarusian officials, judges, the country's university rectors, whom the EU considers as being involved in political repression, followed the presidential election.
EU High Representative for Foreign Policy Catherine Ashton has explained that the expansion of the list of banned is related to the «seriousness of the situation in Belarus.» Visa sanctions against those, «blacklisted by the EU,» will come into force from the date of their official publication, that is, March 22.
In addition, the Council of Europe has included new names in the lists of banned, while the European officials have corrected the mistakes, made in compiling the previous list. Thus, the former chairman of the Vitsebsk voblast election commission Pischulenka Mikhail, who died in 2009, has been removed from the list of banned. Furthermore, the EU has imposed economic sanctions on Yuri Sivakov, who was previously targeted by visa sanctions only.
New names in the list of banned:
1. Valeri Haidukevich, Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs, Commander of Internal Troops
2. Sergei Hureev, Deputy Interior Minister, chief of the preliminary investigation
3. Vladimir Kachanov, advisor to the Minister of Justice
4. Alla Bodak, Deputy Minister of Justice
5. Alexander Simonov, Deputy Minister of Justice
6. Igor Tushinsky, Deputy Minister of Justice
7. Victor Skurat, head of the Minsk City Administration of the Security Department of Interior
8. Sergei Ivanov, deputy chief of the ideology work and staffing support of police department
9. Roman Kadin, commander of the military and technical support of riot police
10. Olga Komar, Judge of the Frunzenski district of Minsk
11. Anton Zagarovski, prosecutor of the Frunzenski district of Minsk
12. Tatiana Cherkas, Judge of the Frunzenski district of Minsk
13. Tatiana Molotsova, prosecutor of the Frunzenski district of Minsk
14. Mikhail Lebedik, first deputy editor of the newspaper «Sovetskaya Belorussia»
15. Hennadi Podhaiski, headmaster of the Minsk State Polytechnic college
16. Petr Kukharchik, rector of the Belarusian State Pedagogical University
17. Mikhail Batura, rector of the Belarusian State University of Informatics and Electronics
18. Mikhail Chesnovski, Rector of Brest State University after Pushkin
19. Tamara Alpeeva, rector of the International Humanities and Economics Institute
As Telegraf previously reported, February 2, 158 Belarusian officials have got under the EU visa sanctions. People, included in the list (including the President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko), are banned from entering the EU territory. In addition, economic sanctions have also been introduced in respect of 157 persons from this list — the EU has frozen all their assets and economic resources.
21 March, the EU decided to expand the list of banned Belarusian officials «in connection with the deteriorating situation of human rights in Belarus.»
