Council of Europe Secretary General Thorbjørn Jagland today made the following statement concerning the release of six political prisoners in Belarus:
"I have been informed today that six political prisoners in Belarus, including Mr. Nikolai Statkevich, have been liberated by a decision of President Lukashenko. I welcome this important decision which definitively goes in the right direction.
Political prisoners and prisoners of conscience should remain a point of history on our continent. Today's Europe must turn this shameful page in Belarus and elsewhere.
On this important day, I also call on the Belarusian leadership to declare a moratorium on the death penalty, which will bring Belarus even closer to the European democratic family and to our standards."