Opposition leader Tichanowskaya: Switzerland must ask Belarus unpleasant questions. Health insurers are no longer allowed to pay for advertising with premium money

Switzerland should ask the regime of Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko unpleasant questions, Tikhanovskaya said in an interview with Tamedia published on Monday. “Switzerland has the diplomatic staff,” she said.

Tichanovskaya would like the Swiss ambassador to Minks, Christine Honegger Zolotukhin, to “work more actively for the release of people imprisoned for political reasons in the worst conditions.”

The interview was conducted before Tichanowskaya’s visit to Switzerland earlier this week. She will travel to Geneva on Monday to meet with the United Nations (UN) ambassadors. She will meet representatives of the Swiss parliament and the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Tuesday.

Wake-up call for the UN

The politician accused the UN of inaction. “People are being arrested arbitrarily, people are dying in prisons. What does the UN do? Nothing.” The death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny should be a wake-up call for the United Nations. “We must no longer tolerate such blatant human rights violations,” she said.

Shortly after Navalny’s death, Tikhanovskaya met with the wife of Russian opposition leader Yulia Navalnaya. The opposition movements do not often work together, Tikhanovskaya said. The conditions in Belarus and Russia are different. “In 2020 there were presidential elections in Belarus, which I won according to independent counts,” the exiled politician said. The elections would have given her the right to form a shadow government. The European Union no longer recognizes Lukashenko as head of state. (sda)