Poland stops assistance to Belarusian opposition website Charter 97
On February 14, the Editor-in-Chief of the Belarusian opposition website Charter97.org, Natalya Radina was invited to the Polish Foundation for International Solidarity, where she was informed that the site could expect Poland’s support in 2019 to be reduced fivefold, as reported on the edition’s website.
“Such a sharp reduction of the site assistance actually means its destruction. Poland helped us after the website editorial office was crushed in Belarus, our site’s founder Oleg Bebenin was killed, journalists were arrested, and I went to the KGB jail,” Radina said.
“In 2011, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Poland invited the site’s editorial office to work in Warsaw and, over the years, their main assistance was provided through the International Solidarity Fund. Today, we are demonstratively deprived of the support at a time when the Prime Minister of the illegitimate Belarusian ‘parliament,’ Mikhail Myasnikovich visits [Poland]”
She also emphasized that Minsk’s authorities have long demanded that Warsaw stop supporting Charter 97.