A total of 15 representatives from “Libereco – Partnership for Human Rights”, “Gefangens Wort” (Word in Prison), “Bund für Soziale Verteidigung” (Federation of Social Defense), members of Amnesty International and two Belarusian guests, Aliaksandr Atroshchankau (political activist of European Belarus and journalist) and Siarhiej Mackievič (Chairman of the Assembly of NGOs of Belarus), came together in Brussels to network and talk with representatives of political institutions about human rights work regarding Belarus.
Thus, on Tuesday they met the MEPs Filip Kaczmarek (Chairman of the Belarusian delegation in the European Parliament) and Marek Migalski (member of the Belarus delegation and godfather of Libereco, too) as well as the polticial scientist and Belarus expert Roland Freudenstein (from the Center of European Studies) for an exchange of their ideas and views.
The invitation for the visit to Brussels came from Werner Schulz, whose meeting on Wednesday unfortunately had to be canceled on very short notice, due to urgent personal reasons.
Nevertheless, the participants were given an interesting insight into the commitment of politicians for the extremely tense situation of human rights in Belarus as well as their limited possibilities for action. Therefore the politicians stressed the importance of support of the local civil society as well as the work of European NGOs with respect to the post-Soviet country. Because of that, new funding models were created in the past (such as the European Endowment for Democracy), which will support the work.
Photos:
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