Opposition leader calls for international pressure on Lukashenko regime

Belarusian opposition politician Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya on Tuesday called on the international community to put pressure on Belarusian authorities over reports of human rights abuses in the wake of contested presidential elections last month.

"I refuse, as do millions of Belarusians, to accept that the world will simply stand and watch these countless abuses of human rights," she said.

Tsikhanouskaya made the comments in a speech to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe by videolink.

She was speaking from Lithuania, where she took refuge after the elections after leaving Belarus under pressure from the authorities in Minsk.

Tsikhanouskaya told the assembly that Belarus needed help and called for international sanctions on individuals who violate human rights.

"We need international pressure on this regime, on this one individual, desperately clinging onto power," she said.

Tsikhanouskaya went on to warn other countries from making deals with the regime of Alexander Lukashenko, saying they do so "at their own risk."

"They cannot and should not expect that the Belarusians and their fairly and democratically elected government will uphold the treaties that are made against their will by an illegitimate regime," she said.

She also told the assembly that Maria Kolesnikova, an opposition activist, had been kidnapped Monday, together with two other staff members of the campaign of Viktor Babariko, a presidential candidate who was barred from standing in the election.

A spokesman for Belarus' Border Guard Committee confirmed that Kolesnikova is in the custody of Belarusian authorities.

Belarus has applied similar tactics with other opposition figures, seeking to end a month of demonstrations against the reelection of Lukashenko in a vote that protesters see as rigged.

Lukashenko has ruled the country for 26 years, relentlessly stifling dissent and keeping most of the economy in state hands.