The German Ombudsman advocated the expansion of sanctions against Belarusian officials

The German Federal Government Commissioner, Marcus Lening, considers it necessary to expand the list of Belarusian officials in respect of which the sanctions need to be imposed.

"The position of Germany is that it is necessary to return previously canceled sanctions against Belarusian officials and expand the circle of these officials," Linge said on Saturday at a press conference in Minsk, Interfax reports.

"As an example that the circle of officials will be expanded, I can bring that an invitation to the Belarusian Minister of Economics to an international conference in Munich is canceled," the Commissioner for Human Rights said.

He also noted that he came to Minsk to "demand the release of the arrested ex-candidates to the presidency and other arrested."

Lening also noted that "the need for sanctions would have disappeared if they could have passed repeated presidential elections in Belarus, let the detainees be released, prosecuted officials responsible for what happened. But this is unlikely."

"Of course, it would be desirable to hold a repeated election, but our paramount desire and demand is the release of the arrested, the removal of their accusations, the admission of lawyers, relatives, and the provision of medical care," the Ombudsman said.

At the same time, he emphasized that "these are not the conditions under which Belarus could get something, but a demand. After all, it is unacceptable that in the center of Europe, citizens of the state could not exercise the right to meetings."

Lening also said that during his visit to Minsk he had a meeting at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Belarus, where he also expressed his demand for the release of the arrested.

Touching upon the closure of the OSCE office in Belarus, Lening emphasized that Germany "is interested in cooperation with the OSCE Belarus to continue in full."

Commenting, at the request of journalists, the statements that appeared in the newspaper Sovetskaya Belarus that allegedly had a German intelligence service in Minsk to the events of December 19, 2010, he called it “complete insanity”.