Lluís Maria de Puig: “Belarus has once again opted for barbarism rather than justice”
Strasbourg, 06.02.2008 - The President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), Lluís Maria de Puig, today expressed his profound dismay at the executions of Syarhey Marozaw, Ihar Danchanka and Valerii Gorbatii in Belarus.
“The Belarusian authorities have once again chosen the course of barbarism and injustice. President Lukachenko could have commuted these sentences and thus shown a clear determination to bring Belarus closer to the Council of Europe. Instead he decided to distance his country even further from the values shared by 800 million Europeans,” PACE President said.
He added that “this atrocity has unfortunately overshadowed the good news of yesterday’s release of the political prisoner Artur Finkevich”.
The PACE President pointed out that Belarus is the only European State which carries out executions and the only one which is not a member of the Council of Europe. He summed up by saying that “a firm will to place an immediate moratorium on executions and abolish the death penalty would be essential for any rapprochement with the Council”.
PACE rapporteur Andrea Rigoni condems executions in Belarus
Strasbourg, 07.02.2008 – “The three capital executions which took place on Tuesday in Belarus sadly show that this country is still a long way away from European values and standards,” commented Andrea Rigoni (Italy, ALDE), rapporteur of the Political Affairs Committee of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE), following the executions of Sergei Morozov, Valery Gorbaty and Igor Danchenko of the Morozov criminal gang. “It is particularly disconcerting that the same day on which a prominent political prisoner such as Artur Finkevich is released, three people are executed. The death penalty is to be condemned in all circumstances and should be completely abolished,” he said.
”I am very disappointed as, recently, there have been several instances in which prominent Belarusian figures have stated that time was ripe for Belarus to introduce a moratorium on the death penalty. I wish that the wave of reprobation raised by these executions will spur the Belarusian authorities into accelerating this process, also in the light of the recent Resolution of the UN General Assembly which, on the basis of an Italian initiative, calls for a worldwide moratorium,” Mr Rigoni declared.
”As a Rapporteur on the situation in Belarus, I will do my best to promote, in my contacts with the authorities and civil society, a moratorium on capital executions, as an intermediate step towards complete abolition,” he concluded.
