[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 5]
[Senate]
[Pages 7412-7413]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                BELARUS

  Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, it was last February that I went to 
Belarus. I had been invited to go to Lithuania to speak to the 
Parliament on the 20th anniversary of their independence from the 
Soviet Union, and I took a second trip into Minsk, Belarus, a neighbor 
nation, because there was a political crisis. It was February, and 
since the Presidential election in the December before, there had been 
a wholesale effort by Lukashenko, the leader of Belarus, to imprison 
his political opponents.
  With so many significant events going on in the Middle East, there is 
an understandable risk that we lose sight of events happening in 
countries such as Belarus. In Belarus, under Aleksandr Lukashenko, if 
you have the temerity to run for President or protest a fraudulent 
election, you will find yourself thrown in a KGB jail where you are 
likely to face torture and harsh prison sentences. If this sounds like 
a throwback to the Cold War in the Soviet Union, that is exactly what 
it is. Not only is Belarus a throwback to the worst political abuses of 
the old Soviet era, but the government's enforcers of this bankrupt 
system still call their police the KGB.
  On Saturday, the Lukashenko regime continued its nightmare of 
totalitarian rule when it convicted one of the country's opposition 
Presidential candidates and former Foreign Minister Andrei Sannikov to 
5 years in prison. You see, Mr. Sannikov had the temerity to run 
against the dictator of Europe, Lukashenko. Because of that, even 
having lost the election, he is going to pay for it by spending 5 years 
in prison.
  This photograph shows Mr. Sannikov in the defendant's cage during his 
trial in the Belarusian capital of Minsk. They put him in a cage. Can 
anyone think of a more telling symbol of Lukashenko's tyranny than a 
sham court proceeding with a KGB cage? His crime? This man ran for 
President of his country.
  In December last year, after nearly two decades of unchecked power, 
Lukashenko decided he would have an open election--in his words, an 
open election. Many took him at his word and decided they would run for 
President. Apparently, Lukashenko did not care for that idea. His idea 
of an election is that no one runs against you. So he staged a sham 
election and then arrested 5 of the 6 Presidential candidates and more 
than 600 peaceful demonstrators after the election.
  I visited Belarus some weeks afterward. I met with the family members 
of these brave candidates and activists. I have to tell you, it was a 
moving experience. The meeting included members of Mr. Sannikov's 
family. This is a photo we took in the office of the U.S. consulate in 
Minsk, in Belarus. It shows Kanstantsin Sannikov, Ala Sannikava, and 
Lyutsina Khalip. Kanstantsin and Ala are Mr. Sannikov's son and mother.
  Ala told me in tears that her son's arrest led to no contact between 
him and his family for weeks, and they denied him a lawyer. After he 
was sentenced to 5 years in prison, she told Radio Liberty that she was 
proud of her son and that ``he suffered so much for the sake of Belarus 
. . . The judicial system has steamrolled our family.''
  Lyutsina is the grandmother of the candidate's 3-year-old son Danil. 
I wanted to put this photo up because Lukashenko decided it was not 
enough to throw this boy's father into prison; he basically said he was 
going to remove this boy from the family as part of the punishment they 
were going to impose on him for running for President in that country. 
You see, not only did they arrest Sannikov, but they arrested his wife 
too. She was a journalist--automatically suspect in Belarus. Even more 
despicable, they tried to take custody of this little boy, who was 
staying with his grandmother. What kind of cruel mind is so afraid of 
the free expression of ideas that they would go after this little boy 
to further punish the parents--the father who had the nerve to run for 
President and the

[[Page 7413]]

mother who had the nerve to publish in some underground publication an 
article critical of Lukashenko.
  President Lukashenko's repression and totalitarian regime have been 
condemned around the world. Asset freezes and travel bans have been 
placed on his enablers and police state enforcers. This Senate and the 
European Parliament both have passed sweeping resolutions condemning 
the regime and calling for new legitimate elections and the release of 
all political prisoners. The families of the detained, the Senate, the 
European Parliament, and National Hockey League Hall of Famer Peter 
Stastny have called on the International Ice Hockey Federation to 
suspend its Belarus-hosted 2014 Ice Hockey Championship until all 
political prisoners are unconditionally released. A dictator such as 
Lukashenko should not be awarded the international prestige of an event 
while prisoners languish in prison for simply exercising their human 
rights. I think it is time for the International Criminal Court 
prosecutor to look into Lukashenko's regime, most notably for the 
allegations of torture.
  I conclude by simply saying that I want Mr. Sannikov and his many 
brave colleagues in Belarus and their families to know that the United 
States will stand by them in their effort to bring a peaceful democracy 
to this great nation of Belarus. We commend their bravery and let them 
know they are not forgotten.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.

                          ____________________