On 25 March, Vilnius hosted the traditional celebration of Freedom Day.On this day, the discussion “Freedom Day in Belarus. The current situation, expectations of prospects” was organized in the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania. It was attended by Belarusian and Lithuanian politicians, human rights defenders and social activists, relatives of political prisoners. During the discussion, Vice-Speaker of Lithuanian Seimas Petras Auštrevičius congratulates Belarusians on the Freedom Day and expressed hope for positive changes in Belarus, as well as introduced the initiative of Lithuanian MPs to appoint “godparents” for each of the Belarusian political prisoners.“As neighbors, Lithuanians should care about the future of the Belarusian nation,” said Petras Auštrevičius. He also noted that the politicians will work to ensure that such an initiative is supported by other MPs: “We appeal to all the parliaments of the EU asking them to join our initiative so this action of political guardianship spread throughout Europe.”

The idea of this initiative is to encourage Lithuanian MPs to address the issue personally, becoming “godfathers” of 10 political prisoners in Belarus: Ihar Alinevich, Mikalai Autukhovich, Ales Bialiatski, Mikalai Dziadok, Andrei Haidukou, Eduard Lobau, Vasili Parfiankou, Artsiom Prakapenka, Mikalai Statkevich, Yauhen Vaskovich. Lithuanian MPs may appeal to the Belarusian authorities, writing to the heads of jails asking to provide information about the health of a particular political prisoner.This campaign includes Lithuanian parliamentarians representing the governing and opposition political parties, who are ready to take responsibility for specific political prisoners in Belarus, to meet with their relatives and publicly speak on both Lithuanian and international arenas telling everyone about human rights violations in Belarus.

The discussion was attended by some close relatives of political prisoners:
Ales Bialiatski’s wife Natallia Pinchuk, Mikalai Satkevich’s wife Maryna Adamovich (left), Eduard Lobau’s mother Maryna Lobava Eduard, Ihar Alinevich’s mother Valiantsina Alinevich, Mikalai Dziadok’s father Aliaksandr Dziadok.They thanked the politicians for this initiative, urged them not to forget about the problem of political prisoners and in gratitude gave each of the “godfather” a T-shirt with photos of political prisoners.

Before the discussion the relatives the of political prisoners, along with Vilnius Belarusians, took part in the flower-laying ceremony at the graves of the signatories of the Act of Independence of the Belarusian Democratic Republic of March 25, 1918 at the Vilnius Rasų cemetery. 

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