“The authorities didn’t miss the opportunity to mislead the international community”, — that’s how Zinaida Hanchar, wife of the kidnapped politician Viktar Hanchar, commented on the statement of Belarusian MPs made at the 113th Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union in Geneva.
The investigation of the kidnap of Hanchar is watched by IPU and its Standing Committee on Democracy and Human Rights pointed at this issue during the assembly.
In fact, Belarusian delegation didn’t say anything new. Instead, it tried to fog the case. Anatol Salauiou, deputy of the Chamber of Representatives of the Belarusian Parliament, told his colleagues in IPU that Minsk procurator’s office had recently resumed “because of new circumstances” the investigation of the case concerning the disappearance of the ex-vice-speaker Viktar Hanchar in 1999.
“If our deputies were really interested in this case, you would surely have known that during the last two years the case hasn’t been suspended. That’s why I’m even more surprised to hear about “the constant control” of the kidnap investigation by the Parliament. I am sure they simply protect their image in the eyes of the international community and purposefully misinform them”, — said Zinaida Hanchar.
As a result of Mr. Salauiou’s statement about the “resumption of Hanchar’s case” the wife of the missing politician applied to IPU President Pier Ferdinando Casini, President of the Italian Chamber of Deputies. In this appeal she thusly evaluated the actions of the Belarusian Parliament: “I am convinced that this disinformation spread by Belarusian Parliamentarians is aimed only at creation of a positive image in the eyes of the international community. I apply to You as the President of the Inter-Parliamentary Union with the request to again apply to the Belarusian Parliament and demand from them honest information about the real situation and the new circumstances of the kidnap known to them.”
During six years Viktar Hanchar’s family has been on tenterhooks and the investigation hasn’t moved a step forwards. The authorities keep the Belarusian society in the dark concerning the investigation of political cases, while the international community they simply try to mislead by straining the truth.
