P.E.N. Zentrum deutschsprachiger Autoren im Ausland

RAPID ACTION NETWORK :: BELARUS

Letter to Lukashenko

Alyaksandr G. Lukashenka
President of the Republic of Belarus
Karl-Marx-Str. 38
220016 g. Minsk
Belarus
Fax: 00375/172/260610

25 March 2006

Dear Mister President,

According to reliable reports received by medias, human rights groups and the International PEN, Mister Andrej Dynnko, well-known journalist and democraticly elected Vice-President of the Belarus PEN, as well the poet Iryna Darafiejchuk are arrested because of their peaceful and strictly non-violent engagement for freedom and democrazy.

On behalf of the PEN Centre of German-Speaking Writers Abroad I call you to release these persons immediately and unconditionally. Our Centre was founded 72 years ago by German writers and intellectualls who were forced into exile, since they had been persecuted by the Nazi Authorities, what means that our Centre have a long tradition in the defence of writers, journalists and the idea of free expression.

Today, it´s no more like before. Innocent victims of repression don´t stay anymore unknown and helpless - and authorities can´t anymore count on the fact that there behaviour will stay anonymious. It will not and exactly for this reason at the moment the eyes of the whole world are watching what´s happened in your country and who is doing what and under which order.

So we call you again to release Andrej Dynko and Iryna Darafiejchuk immediately from prison. We count on your personal responsibility concerning their life and health.

Yours sincerely,

Marko Martin, PEN Centre of German-Speaking Writers Abroad