EU, OSCE slam Belarus rights campaigner sentence

(WARSAW) - EU leader Poland and OSCE president Lithuania on Thursday slammed the jailing by Belarus of a human rights leader after a trial based on evidence they have insisted they were tricked into supplying.

In a statement, Poland's foreign ministry said that it and rest of the 27-nation European Union demanded the immediate release of Ales Beliatsky.

It said his four-and-a-half sentence for tax evasion handed down Thursday was "unjustified and harsh prison".

"The trial was purely political in nature and the charges of concealing income served merely as a pretext to attack the non-governmental sector on which the regime wants to assume full control," it insisted.

In Lithuania, which currently leads the 56-nation Organisation for Seucrity and Cooperation in Europe, Foreign Minister Audronius Azubalis also blasted the ruling.

"This is a clear sign that the regime in Belarus has finally turned from Europe and the whole Western democratic world and has chosen the standards tested by autocracies of the East," Azubalis told AFP.

Beliatsky, 49, is the leader of the banned "Vyasna" (Spring) human rights group and a leading opponent of authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko, who has the ruled ex-Soviet republic since 1994.

He was detained on August 4 after authorities received information from ex-communist neighbours Poland and Lithuania about bank accounts he held in their countries to support his work at home.

Because of tough restrictions at home, both countries offer a haven for activists from Belarus and their funds.

After the arrest, they claimed Belarus had abused tax-information exchange accords and issued formal apologies for cooperating with the regime.

"I regret that data provided by Lithuania was used to commit evil work," Azubalis said Thursday.

"I am convinced that Beliatsky's name will soon become a freedom and democracy symbol just like Aung San Suu Kyi in Burma, Nelson Mandela in South Africa or Andrei Sakharov in Russia," Azubalis said.

"History shows that nations inspired by such symbols sooner or later win that fight for freedom," he said, adding that he planned to nominate Beliatsky for the Nobel Peace Prize.