KYIV (Reuters) – The European Union on Tuesday condemned the detention of a senior diplomat to Belarus who attended the trial of opposition activists in the capital Minsk as “unacceptable and deplorable”.
Evelina Schulz, chargée d’affaires of the EU delegation in Minsk, was detained by Belarusian police for more than two hours as she exited court after the public reading of verdicts in an otherwise closed-door trial, a spokesperson for the EU’s diplomatic service said.
“This illegal detention of a diplomat is a serious breach of the Vienna Convention on diplomatic relations … and undermines their security in Belarus,” Peter Stano, spokesperson for the European External Action Service (EEAS), said in an emailed statement.
The Belarus foreign ministry did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.
The EEAS said it had summoned the Belarusian chargé d’affaires in Brussels for an explanation of the incident.
Ten Belarussian activists, many of whom identified themselves as anarchists, were sentenced from 5 to 17 years in prison, human rights organization Spring 96 reported. The EEAS described the sentences as “unjustifiably long and harsh.”
(Writing by Conor Humphries; Editing by Vinay Dwivedi)
