Independent Journalism is an Issue for Belarus in the International Arena

MEPs stress that “since 1994 no free and fair elec­tions have been con­duct­ed in Belarus” and that its attempts to make progress dur­ing 2015 pres­i­den­tial and 2016 par­lia­men­tary elec­tions were insuf­fi­cient.  Key sec­tors of the Belaru­sian econ­o­my are still under state con­trol, no new polit­i­cal par­ty has been reg­is­tered since 2000, new ways to harass or even jail the oppo­si­tion are being found, they add.

The res­o­lu­tion calls on Belarus to stop these devel­op­ments, reit­er­ates the Euro­pean Parliament’s com­mit­ment to sup­port the pro-demo­c­ra­t­ic aspi­ra­tions of its peo­ple and calls on the Euro­pean Exter­nal Action Ser­vice and the EU Com­mis­sion “to con­tin­ue and strength­en sup­port for civ­il soci­ety orga­ni­za­tions in Belarus and abroad.”

Among oth­er issues, such as exe­cu­tion of death penal­ty and threat to envi­ron­ment because of the new nuclear plant, the res­o­lu­tion also calls on the author­i­ties to put an end to polit­i­cal pres­sure on inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ism and to admin­is­tra­tive pros­e­cu­tion of free­lance jour­nal­ists (arti­cle 22.9).

The res­o­lu­tion on Belarus was passed by 468 votes to 21, with 93 absten­tions.