Germany's support for opposition in Belarus

Belarus remains under the rule of President Alexander Lukashenko six months after contentious elections, as public protests against the outcome persist. 

Chancellor Angela Merkel sought to pull the issue back into the spotlight this week in her video podcast, outlining her government's "action plan [for the] civil society of Belarus."

Merkel said she had come to admire the "unshakable" nature of the opposition protesters in the face of sometimes violent government repression. Providing refuge for politicians or activists fleeing the country would make up a core component of the German action plan, she said.

"With it, persecuted opposition and people in humanitarian need will be more easily able to receive visas and asylum with us," Merkel said. "We want to help traumatized victims of torture but also to provide scholarships or grants and to support independent media."

Scope of activity not yet clear

Speaking to DW about the extent of the plans, a junior minister at the Foreign Ministry in Berlin, Michael Berger, said that it was too soon to discuss how many people from Belarus might hope for refuge in Germany.

"We have only just agreed within the federal government to start such a program. And of course we will pay particular attention to people who are exposed to acute pressure, who no longer see a future for themselves in Belarus because of the state's repression. In any case at first, that will be the focus," Berger said.

The chancellor had alluded to the front line of Belarus' opposition in her comments as well, mentioning both her recent meeting with Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya in Berlin and the fact that fellow activist Maria Kolesnikova was "locked in prison like so many others" and unable to leave the country.

Berger pointed to broader opportunities to show support to civil society, for instance highlighting the difficulties faced by prominent athletes from Belarus who spoke out against the government in Minsk. He said there were similar tales of repression in arts and the theater, among actors and journalists.

A little extra beyond EU sanctions

Although progress was quite slow at first, with a first tangible response emerging out of Brussels only on October 1, the EU has imposed three rounds of sanctions on Belarus and officials in Minsk since the elections in August last year.

These target a total of 88 individuals and seven entities in the country, including Lukashenko and his son, with restrictions including a travel ban on EU territory and asset freezes where possible. EU citizens and companies are also forbidden from making funds available to the listed people and entities.

Merkel acknowledged in her video podcast that Germany's extra efforts beside the EU's measures "will not decide the conflict between justice and oppression in Belarus," saying that "this is not possible at all from outside."

But she hoped it would "show the courageous people there that we are by their sides and hear their voices — today, just as six months ago."

Seeking 'legal consequences' one day

In their most recent meeting with Minsk's opposition "Coordination Council," representatives of Germany's government also agreed to help with efforts to document and record the regime's repression of peaceful protesters.

Berger from the Foreign Ministry in Berlin said that efforts to track crimes committed in Belarus were designed to "give the necessary teeth" to the three rounds of existing EU sanctions — "to show the people who are responsible for this repression, responsible for these breaches in human rights law, that they can be brought to account."

He stressed that this idea was not Germany's own; rather, it was being pursued in consort with "a series of" NGOs and European partner countries.

"We want to document — and in a way that will stand up in court — which crimes and which assaults on freedoms have been committed. And in principle there are two possibilities of how to achieve that," Berger said. "It could be done via the United Nations, via the Human Rights Commission in Geneva. And the other possibility that we're also looking into is that we assign various NGOs with this task so that this evidence is collated."

The minister said it was still too early to think in terms of a kind of international court dedicated to crimes committed in Belarus, saying that the "first step" remained gathering the evidence in such a way that it could later be used in some forum.

"We've seen the repression by the police. Thirty thousand people have been arrested in the meantime. There are more than 200 political prisoners and still not a single legal case against a member of the security forces," Berger said.

For now, six months after the latest dubious reelection of "Europe's last dictator" in Minsk, seeking justice for the allies or indeed the victims of Alexander Lukashenko still seems a rather distant goal.