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 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.

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