By Andrei Makhovsky
MINSK, April 14 (Reuters) – Belarussian opposition
politician Andrei Sannikov was released from prison on Saturday
after the European Union imposed new sanctions on the former
Soviet republic.
Sannikov, a former deputy foreign minister and presidential
candidate, was sentenced to five years in prison last year for
taking part in a mass protest that followed President Alexander
Lukashenko’s re-election for a fourth term in December 2010.
The European Union has long urged his release and introduced
travel bans and asset freezes against a number of Belarussian
officials and businessmen, prompting a diplomatic row with Minsk
in February after which all EU ambassadors left Belarus.
In a move that could help avert any further escalation of
the conflict, Lukashenko’s government released Sannikov from his
high-security prison on Saturday without giving any official
explanation as to why he had been released.
“He is at a railway station in (city of) Vitebsk,”
Sannikov’s wife Irina Khalip told Reuters. “We are arranging for
his return.”
Sannikov’s family said it had not been given any explanation
on why he was released. The authorities could not be reached for
comment.
Human rights activists say about 15 people are still kept in
Belarussian prisons on political grounds.
Sannikov, 58, ran against Lukashenko in the 2010 poll which
Western observers criticised as fraudulent, and is one of the
leading opposition politicians in the tightly run authoritarian
nation.
A number of other opposition politicians and activists were
detained at the rally and jailed afterwards, although most have
since been released.
Sannikov had initially refused to ask Lukashenko for pardon
but submitted such a request last December after what he
described as threats against his family.
Lukashenko has run Belarus since 1994, tolerating little
dissent and maintaining a Soviet-style economic system with
artificially low prices, large public sector and nearly full
employment.
He has relied largely on financial support from Russia,
which provides Belarus with cheap energy and other benefits,
seeing it as a buffer between itself and the NATO.
(Reporting by Andrei Makhovsky; Writing by Olzhas Auyezov
Editing by Maria Golovnina)
