 Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Institute of International and European Affairs, I'd like to welcome you all to today's event. My name is David Donohue. Our guest today is Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who will speak to us on the topic of Belarus on the brink of now. Svetlana will look at the current situation in Belarus and at possible ways forward for the opposition there, of which she is a very prominent member in the aftermath of the election last year and also of the further crisis caused by the Lukashenko regime's diversion of a Ryanair jet, as we know in May, and the arrest of an activist who was on board. Svetlana is perhaps Belarus's best known human rights activist and opposition leader. As we all know, she stood as she contested the presidential election last August as the main opposition candidate following the detention of her husband, Sergei Tikhanovskaya. Since the election and its heavily disputed results, she's been based in Lithuania as the official representative of Belarus's democratic opposition in exile. She heads the Coordination Council to facilitate a peaceful democratic transfer of power in Belarus. Before running for the presidency, she was an English teacher and interpreter. And as those of us living in Ireland know, she spent a number of summers here as a teenager near Rosquay. And in fact, Svetlana, it has been very touching, I think, for all of us to see the coverage of your reunion with your host family this week. You've had a very busy trip to Ireland this week, and we're all a little more grateful to you for taking time out from that schedule to speak to us at the Institute. A few housekeeping points, Svetlana will be keeping her opening remarks fairly brief to about five minutes, and both her remarks and the Q&A session will be on the record. Please feel free to send in questions or comments as they occur to you during the session, and you would use the Q&A function for that, which you'll see at the bottom of your screens. And we'll try to get to as many as possible. And Svetlana will be joined by her colleague, Vranek Via Chorka, who is a senior advisor to her for the Q&A session. Finally for those using Twitter, the handle is at IIEA. So with that Svetlana, once again, you're very, very welcome, and please take the floor. Thank you. Dear ladies and gentlemen, and you know, I'm deeply honored to speak in front of you today. As you know, Ireland is an exceptional country for me. I was 14 when I came here for the first time as a so-called Chernobyl kid. I came here three times and had a terrific summer with my host family. I saw them yesterday in Roskri and I can't express how grateful I am for their love and kindness. You know, apparently Belarus political crisis began a long time ago. In 1996, a year when I first came to Ireland, Aleksandr Lukashenko conducted a political coup d'etat. He endowed himself with unlimited powers. Before that he dismissed parliament and destroyed opponents. And many alternative parties, media outlets, civil society groups, got destroyed. And thousands of people had to flee the country and look for a better future abroad. Most prominent political leaders disappeared and got killed by the regime's cronies a few years later. All elections since then were falsified. And it was hard to imagine that something might change in Belarus. And as an absolute majority of Belarusians, I was never involved in politics before 2020. Of course, I was following the news and I saw this horrible injustice ordinary Belarusians face daily. But I didn't see a way to change it. But it changed last year when Belarusians woke up. And after the election was announced, my husband decided to run. Never soon he got jailed, so I decided to come and register instead of him. This is how I became a presidential candidate, advocating for democratic reforms, but first of all for the release of political prisoners. And it was already evident that the regime will not give up its power. And it was also apparent that people will not give up either. And on August 9th, millions of Belarusians expressed their wish for a peaceful and democratic transition of power. And predictably, elections were stolen. And moreover, those who joined the peaceful protest faced rubber bullets, gas and truncheons. The protests continued despite police violence and torture. And since last August, more than 35,000 Belarusians were arrested. Thousands were tortured, thousands were prosecuted and 555 political prisoners and at least 10 died in relation to protest. Not a single case was initiated against the government officials for all these abuse. My husband, Sergei Tikhanovsky, is one of the hundreds of political prisoners. He didn't see his children for more than one year already. My only contact to him is through lawyer. And of course, he can't tell everything he feels there behind the bars. But I know for sure that he's strong and he will get through this. Unfortunately, very little information gets to us from those behind the bars. Prisoners are deprived of medical assistance. There are no windows, so they can't see the sun. Prisoners are not delivered or delivered with a mob delay. Women are stripped searched. And when you object, the guards can beat you and humiliate you in front of the others. Journalist Igor Loisik protested against prison conditions. He almost died in 40 days hunger strike, twice committed suicide attempts. And he says that he can't handle it. In one of his latest letters to his wife, he said that he feels like a prisoner in Auschwitz. In the last two weeks, regimes thugs raided more than 30 media outlets and human rights organizations. Activists, journalists, human right defenders, volunteers, God detained, beaten, charged in anti-state activists and now face years of prison. The regime is literally destroying civil society. The human rights catastrophe in Belarus may seem to prove the strength of the repressive machine and the weakness of the unarmed resistance. But in reality, it demonstrates the weakness of the dictatorship that has no other means left to keep in power but violence. And the regime tries to stop time and to return to the worst practices of the Soviet era. But Belarusians have already chosen the future as democratic and will not change their minds. You know, the crisis has outgrown Belarus borders already. The regime hijacked the Iran airplane, organized the flow of migrants to the neighboring countries and openly threatened to flood Europe with trucks and nuclear waste. For some, it might seem as many separate problems. However, the source of problems is the same, uncountable, unpredictable and non-transparent regime which stole elections to raise Belarusians and impose security threats to entire Europe. So I urge the international community to focus on the problem, not only the consequences. Until Belarusians have a possibility to freely choose their leadership, the type of accidents, attacks, provocations and repressions against Belarusian citizens are going to continue. New free and fair elections this year will help to solve the crisis. Violence must end and all political prisoners must be unconditionally released and rehabilitated. And we ask the world to support these demands. And you may ask, what will make the regime to release people and conduct free elections? My answer is pressure, from inside and outside. People in the regime, and this is not about only ex-president, must feel that there is no other solution to the crisis to step down and conduct new elections. And the country and multiple initiatives bravely continue. They work despite terror and repressions and then it helps. So I call on the international community to provide assistance and emergency funding for media, human rights defenders, legal defense efforts, local civic initiatives and activists, striking committees and emerging professional associations such as athletes, cultural workers, doctors and teachers and of course students that are expelled for their political views. I would love to draw special attention to supporting media initiatives. Vibrant and sustainable media are the basements for a resilient and robust society. I also ask to support families of the repressed. As one of the Chernobyl kids, I can say that we face now the new Chernobyl, Chernobyl of human rights. And so many Belarusians, especially children are traumatized and in need of rehabilitation. And it would be great to develop a special program to let children or political prisoners spend time in Ireland. I also ask to support Belarusian relicans and diaspora. Thousands of people were forced to leave the country fleeing prosecution last year and this year. But just as the Irish abroad became a great force that helped to restore independence, the Belarusian diaspora is rapidly developing networks of solidarity all over the globe. So I welcome the support of these initiatives, especially in the sphere of culture that we celebrated last week. Pressure from outside must include sanctions, international legal mechanisms and legitimization of the regime. And I really welcome the principal position of Ireland. And I thank your country for condemning the regime and supporting the European sanctions against it. The crackdown on media and human rights defenders must get a strong response from the international community. So now I ask to support the fifth European Union sanctions package that should include a broad list of individuals and companies and close the loopholes in the sanctions imposed recently against potash and oil sector. I also call Ireland along with other like-minded countries to promote the topic of Belarus at the UN Security Council. Organizing an area formal hearing on the human rights abuses and torture in Belarus can help to draw attention of the world to Belarus. And it's essential to use all available international mechanisms to bring perpetrators to justice. The case of Freynair plane hijacking should be filed to the International Court of Justice. And Ireland as an affected country can help with that. We also ask the UN Human Rights Council and the Office of the High Commissioner to put the Belarus crisis on the agenda. Even though Belarus is not a member of the International Criminal Court, preliminary examination of the regime's crimes can be still launched. You know, I look in the future with optimism. One year ago, Belarusians chose to live in free and democratic Belarus. Right now we have to protect this choice. No one will bring freedom to us. And it's our task, of course. But with international support and your solidarity, the path to freedom will be faster and less painful. And I dream that everyone who is behind bars or in forced exile will be able to return home. So please help us pave the way for new democratic Belarus. Thank you. And Guru Mahagat. Thank you very much, Svetlana. And especially for the last words in Irish, you obviously put your time and lost weight to good use. I thought maybe you might have picked up a temporary accent, but I'm sure you have very, very good memories of your time there. We have a number of questions coming in, Svetlana, and some comments, all extremely supportive of what you're doing. Let me just first mention a comment from David Joyce, who is with the Irish trade union movement. He just wanted to underline the solidarity of Irish trade unions to you and all who are struggling for democracy and human rights in Belarus. He witnessed the level of oppression at a meeting of the ILO in June where the Belarus authorities openly threatened brothers and sisters in the independent trade union BKDP. So basically David Joyce wants to underline the readiness of the Irish trade union movement to do everything possible in solidarity with you. I have a question from Tom Ferris, which let me just read it out. Yeah, is the European Union doing enough to support the Belarusian people's struggle towards a peaceful democracy? You touched on that a little bit, Svetlana, but it would be useful just to talk a bit more about the EU's response as such. What has happened up to now and what could potentially still be done? Could I hand that to you? Thank you. I really appreciate all the efforts of the European Union and other countries like the USA, UK and the Ukraine, Canada for their strong position. And after August event, all the democratic countries declared that our elections were fraudulent and that Lukashenka's regime is not legitimate. And it was a very supportive message to all Belarusians that the whole world with us and be continued our fight being assured that democratic countries will be standing with us. And I have to say that through packages of sanctions that were imposed right after their elections, they were more moral, I'd say. They were not strong enough and it was like a message to regime that we see you and we are going to stand with Belarusians. And after this, especially after this picture of beautiful demonstrations, it disappeared because Lukashenka with the help of violence and guns and tortures was succeeded to suppress those huge demonstrations. Attention to Belarus was decreasing step by step. And after December, we didn't have big conferences or huge attention to Belarusian question and Lukashenka felt impunity. And it ends with hijacking of the plane. And after this, after this hijacking, the attention of democratic countries, of course, raised and new adequate sanctions, rather strong sanctions for package and sectoral sanctions were imposed. And, you know, of course, it threatened regime because they maybe didn't expect such a strong answer and especially it's about closing airspace above Belarus. And but even then, you know, regime couldn't think strategically. They started to take revenge on the countries that are supporting Belarusian society and started to send illegal immigrants to the borders of Lithuania. And, you know, I'm sure that European countries want to help. But so as it is our pain, and this is our beloved people and relatives are in jail suffering from humiliation and ill treatment. It's never enough for us. And I'm sure that European Union can do more. But if there are, you know, some doubts about sanctions, I'm sure we'll discuss it a little bit more later. But as for assistance to civil society. You know, the answer, the response can be really much stronger because maybe not all the countries understand the scale of the repressions and the scale of needs of Belarusian civil society at the moment. So many prisoners inside country, their relatives need help. But what is more prominent that Lukashenko's regime destroyed mass media inside their country. He's destroying human rights defenders in the country. And a lot of journalists had to flee the country. A lot of people had to flee the country. And all those relatives, all those businesses that were lost in Belarus and also had to be relocated, they need assistance. And, you know, European Union want to help. But sometimes it helps because of, you know, some level of bureaucratization very slow. But we really need this help to be emergency help. You know, all those money that were launched to help Belarusians, for example, in November, they came to organizations maybe in March or April. But people are suffering now. And sometimes it's necessary maybe to launch new program, emergency program that will be able to bring this assistance rather fast to to to relic and to organizations that had to flee the country to help them to restore. And for example, if we take journalists, you know, we have traditional mass media like to buy different local newspapers that are being closed now. But also we have emergent journalists like YouTube channels, telegram channels, because we have, you know, Belarusians have become so creative now. And while closing traditional mass media, we have to open new one to show the truth, to search information inside the country to show the world. And this emergency journalists, journalism need assistance like, you know, technical support to buy equipment to relocate people. And it's only one part journalist, but there are, as I already said, businesses, people who flee the country, you know, without nothing, just taking one clothes and leaving in rush. So if it's possible, you know, to reorganize this, reorganize this help, you know, to to react more effectively and more rapidly, it would be of much appreciate, you know, and, you know, Lithuania asked for five fifth package of sanctions, and I hope that European Union will impose those sanctions rather fast, not just delaying this, because, you know, more democratic countries are delaying their response. It's more easily for regime to get used to this and find ways to bypass those restrictions of sanctions. And of course, it's necessary to close loopholes that were in the sectoral sanctions and in the fourth sanction list. So we just, we have to look at the problem from two sides, pressure on the regime and assistance to civil society and European Union can be really helpful. And, you know, there are problems with sending money to people who are on the ground, because regime closed all their bank accounts of the people, they closed borders for, you know, for traveling, you know, for printing this physical assistance to the country. And we are trying to use technologies to provide this assistance to the inside country. And now we see that only cryptocurrency is available in Belarus and European Union is rather, you know, is hesitating about using this method of sending money. But, you know, we have very unconventional situations, so unconventional ways of assistance also have to be launched, you know, just, we are always, you know, trying to assist in this question to European Union representatives to help them to, you know, to transfer this money to people who are in need to give to provide all the information how it's better to do this. But of course, there are problems in getting this assistance, but, you know, we together with European Union countries do our best to improve this. Thank you very much, Fadana. You make very powerful points there about supporting media freedom, about supporting civil society and de-bureaucratising the packages of sanctions. I think those points are all very, very well taken. A question from Stephen Frayn, who is with the Institute. What is your vision for Belarus sort of eventually taking its place as a free and democratic country within Europe? Do you see it seeking membership of the EU and or the Council of Europe, looking further afield to a further head to when there is a peaceful transfer of power? What kind of relations do you see Belarus aspiring to at that point with other European countries? You know, I see new Belarus as safe and prosperous country, and now I don't have the right to say what the future we will have according to in relation to European Union. It's up to Belarusian people to decide. My task and task of Belarusian people now is to bring our country to new elections where they will be able to choose the president they really want and after this to solve all their other questions. We are not, now our strategy is not pro-European or pro-Russian or anti-Australian. You know, we have our aim and after gaining this aim, we will decide where to move to the West, East, North or South. You know, just I want our country to, I want to return their voices to people. That's our task now and only then we, you know, we will decide our movements. Thanks for that. We have quite a number of questions coming in about the relationship with Russia. No surprise, one from Alan Dukes, who's a former Irish government minister and director general of the Institute. Alan notes that support from Putin is essential for Lukashenko. What do you think the EU can do to get Putin to change his position? I mean, the relationship with Russia is very, very complicated. What's your own assessment of that relationship? You know, putting pressure on Lukashenko's regime and isolating him politically and economically. You are European countries sending clear message to Kremlin that Lukashenko is toxic. You know, and it's, you should like increase the price for Kremlin to support and Lukashenko. You know, you, at this very moment, you know, we are not Russia, and we always send this message, we should be, our crisis is not like crisis of two countries, we are a separate country, we are not appendix of Russia. And, but of course we all understand that Kremlin influences Lukashenko, first of all. But at this very moment, it's important to clarify your position that it's the subject of Belarusian people to fight against the regime. No, it's not, you know, like Russian issue. We don't have to put, you know, like two, how do you say in English, two balls in one basket? And on the other hand, you should send clear message that all the deals that are signed between two countries, they are not illegitimate, they are not legal, and will be, of course, they can be recalled or, you know, in the future. You know, because our country now can be the threat of losing independence and independence is the main value for Belarusian people. And we don't know what Lukashenko is doing now behind the curtains, maybe he's selling enterprises or maybe he's selling our independence. And we want European Union countries to be guarantors that all the deals, you know, will be revised in the future. You know, that's it. Fernando, one further question that I made just about Putin, do you think that Putin is already looking to the post Lukashenko situation? I mean, it's no secret that there has been no love loss between the two of them over the years. But do you think Russia, in view of the events of the last year, is beginning to shift its own thinking towards who would come after him? And is there much speculation about that among Belarus opposition groups? What kind of successor could emerge? You know, Kremlin supported Lukashenko after fraudulent elections because Kremlin wasn't prepared for such huge uprising also. They didn't prepare their own pro-Russian candidate, for example. And now it's not comfortable for Russia to have Lukashenko the power because it means not stable situation in Belarus. But they can't afford that democracy will come to Belarus through revolution, through uprising. And we don't see that they have really clear strategy about Belarus now. They are continuing to support Lukashenko on diplomatic level, they accept him, they make pictures with him, but obviously this support is not very evident now. They would like to solve this crisis as well, but they don't know how. You know, they understand that Lukashenko's toxic is not possible to build normal relationship with person who isn't accepted, not inside the country, not on the international arena. But they have to follow the so-called support of him not to allow democratic forces to win. But again, it's not about Russia. On all our meetings, I had to persuade, not persuade, but to underline that we are not part of the Russia. Look, we are separate country. Of course, we have bilateral interest, but we want to be, Russia is our neighbors, and we always will be in trade relationship, political relationship with them, but we want to continue this. But we want this relationship more transparent and clear in future, and we always send messages to Russia that we want to talk. We want to see Russia as the part of the mediation table, the dialogue table. You know, the same as Lithuania as our other neighbors. We welcome them if they want to be there, you know, they want to be resolution of the crisis, not to deep this crisis, not to freeze this crisis. And but we, you know, we have to deal with what we have. We continue our efforts to communicate to representatives of Kremlin the same as with the representatives of the regime. We are open for dialogue and we always like, you know, showing this. We are not closed. We want to be civilized, we want to find civilized way to resolve the crisis, to think about people, first of all, not about power. Thank you very much for that. And a lot of questions coming in about Roman Potasevich and his partner Sophia. Can you tell us anything about the latest situation in relation to Roman and what prospects there are of having him released from custody? You know, Roman is under home arrest now, but home arrest doesn't mean freedom and rehabilitation. He's still like on the hook, if I may say so, in English again. Yeah, he's, he's living, I suppose, in a separate house, but he's living for sure with KGB people inside and he's, you know, being monitored by them and, you know, he's hostage. And maybe they will use him somewhere once again, like as you saw his interviews praising, you know, Lukashenko, but he could be tortured, he could be threatened, I don't know, with what they have methods to influence and threaten people. So his parent doesn't have any contact with him. So we know that relatives maybe of Sophia or Romans relative can bring food to, you know, to him. And I hope that he's well, but he don't know for sure. Yeah. Just still on the subject of Lithuania, the migration crisis or to be more precise Lukashenko's exploitation of migrants in order to put more pressure on Lithuania. How do you see that impacting on the current situation? For sure Lukashenko and his regime wants to take revenge. You know, they want to show that look we are so strong, we can do everything we want, we can threaten European society as well. They are threatening not only Belarusian side country but also Europeans, European countries and you know, European Union is a real power and countries have to show their teeth if I may say so now and to be consistent in their policy. Lukashenko regime has only violence and such disgusting methods of so-called foreign policy, you know, and it's not, it's unacceptable and European Union has to show the strong answer for these actions and not to return to business as usual. You know, it's happened, you know, in previous years. You know, this time should be different and Belarusians are sure that this time we can be success story and they're ready to fight as long as possible because people are being jailed and new people appear who replace volunteers, who replace activists and we have very small space of acting inside country but we use every like point of this. Our workers are being organized in striking communities, they are preparing a national white strike one day and our volunteers, we have a rather big net of volunteers inside country that widespread. We're trying to reach Svetlana again just a momentary interruption. Yeah, I'm here, sorry. They were great. Yeah, Svetlana, yeah. So I wanted to say that people are continuing to fight as much as they can. It's not, it's very difficult, extremely difficult under such pressure, but they understand their responsibility, responsibility for those who are already in jail. You know, those people sacrificed with their freedom and some with lives with the health for to give us opportunity to continue and we can't betray those people and the democratic society, international society also can't betray, betray, you know, prisoners and all the Belarusians who understand that we are responsible for the changes, but with the help of international community, this will be much easier and faster. So something like this. Yeah. Thanks Svetlana. You've spoken very clearly about what the European Union should do, or I'm sure will do. What about the Council of Europe and the OSCE as other organizations where the kind of the human rights were met, covering all parts of Europe? Are there particular things you'd like to see the Council of Europe and maybe the OSCE do in support of your activities? You know, we are grateful to all international structures that are trying to help us and Council of Europe can be really very vocal and supportive to our fight, but I'll give the word to Franek now just for him to explain the situation. Thank you. Okay. Hi Franek. Yes, hi. Hi, good afternoon. We are trying to mobilize and use leverage OSCE, United Nations, Council of Europe. Of course it's very limited, especially considering the fact that Belarus is not very active member of OSCE and Belarus is not member of Council of Europe because of death penalty. And this makes us in the situation when we want to get Belarus being discussed, but it is blocked in OSCE by Russia and by Lukashenko as represented on one hand. And in Council of Europe, all the decisions and resolutions, they're not implemented because Belarus is not a member of this. But what we see right now, Parliamentary Assembly of OSCE, issuing resolutions perhaps doesn't have a direct impact, but it has accumulative effect because it's like analyzing and giving assessments to the current state of affairs. We see Council of Europe presenting reports almost every month on torture, on human rights, on media. And this also helps to show both to Belarusians, to elites, and to the international community that things are not normal in Belarus. So it's also helping a lot. What can be done more? Some like international high level events. We were trying to hold such events under OSCE auspices, but unfortunately it did not happen because of COVID, but also because of some member states were not interested in doing this. But instead of this, we saw impressive Moscow Mechanism developed by OSCE member states, which didn't need consensus because Moscow Mechanism allowed to impose, you know, mechanism without consensus of all OSCE member states. And this Moscow Mechanism became the basis for many other policies and policies implemented by governments, parliaments, but also different stakeholders when they went public, they were referring Moscow Mechanism. On the United Nations, that's a separate story, United Nations have very different layers that can be involved. Today, Svetlana has met the Special Rapporteur on human rights defenders. And yesterday we saw a crackdown on human rights defenders. And this is exactly the case where UN Special Rapporteur can raise awareness to speak out and to help Belarusian human rights defenders to get the help and attention. UN have Human Rights Council as well. Human Rights Council adopted the resolution which gave special mandate to high commissioner on human rights. But what we have to do, we have to help this experts group created by Michel Bachelet, you know, to be more efficient, you know, to support it. It's not enough just to launch the framework. It's very important to make this framework working to make it more practical, so to give it political power, only then it will be working. And sometimes, you know, very negative thing and we're disappointed that many things are discussed regarding Belarus when there is media attention. And then when media attention is going down, you know, there is no more political will. This political will is disappearing. And it's very difficult to keep this attention span on a high level. Thank you very much, Vanik. Can I come to a question from Shona Murray of Euronews? Shona asks, what would it take for new and fair elections to materialize? I mean, this obviously is one of your major objectives, Svetlana. We've read about supposed efforts by our supposed intentions on Lukashenko's part to bring in new constitutional reforms and referendums. I mean, to be honest, we've been there before. I'm sure there's a lot of skepticism about that. But what do you think it will actually take to bring about the fair elections that you have demanded? You know, we in Belarus think that only consistency will bring us to new elections. We have to follow our strategy, dialogue and new elections. And we are preparing for this. You know, we are in process of revolution, of course, but we are thinking about transition period and about future as well. We had a wonderful conference on new elections and we estimated that new elections can be held in 40 days after some changes will happen. Just we will be prepared for transition period. We will be prepared for new elections and the period after elections. I have to repeat this. Pressure, assistance to civil society for them to survive and to be sustainable at the moment to continue their fight. And you know, regime is making mistakes, you know, and it's also, it can happen very quickly. It seems maybe that nothing is happening in Belarus, but this situation is changing constantly. You know, who knows what could influence the situation. Nobody expected to run a plane hijacking. Nobody expected this flow of migrants to Lithuania. Nobody knows what new Lukashenka will invent in the country that will raise people again. You know, maybe he will, I don't know, decrease the wages of workers and they will, you know, go out for strikes. You know, there can be a lot of scenarios of this, but we will, our task is to be prepared for the moment when, when quick changes will, you know, have to be done. Okay, sorry for my English. And like we are doing everything. Now we are preparing a new constitution and this constitution is being discussed by all the people. It's not, it's not done behind the curtains as the regime always did. And now they are pretending they are also working on a new constitutional reform, but it's off. It's all, can I say bluff? You know, they are not going to, yeah, they are not going to do anything is they are just like, want to keep more time to keep the regime in the power, and only our strong actions, joint actions inside the country and joint actions in all the democratic countries that you're saying the European Union countries, you know, you European Union and the you're saying looking at each other. You know, what will be the next step of European Union who will be braver so we will join their sanctions, you know, and you know that inside Belarus all the processes are going on, because all those businesses who now are supporting the regime, they understand that, you know, regime is toxic now. And all those sanctions can impose businesses of this businessman and they have to choose. So should they continue supporting this strange person who is acting, you know, such, you know, in a moral way, or should they pay attention to new Belarus and join a civil society, you know, at least not, they can't, they may not support Lukashenko at the moment but they can change the attitude to him. And they know that they, you know, these businesses have already experienced that in past, even if you are friend of Lukashenko he easily can put you in jail in couple of months. Everybody is under threat, supporting the regime not supporting one mistake and you are in jail, even from from those who are loyal to this regime. So we have to show, you know, now we are talking about sanctions, about all those atrocities and violence, it's so painful but we have to look into the future as well. We have to show new Belarus, and this comprehensive plan that was launched by European Union was accepted with gratitude inside Belarus, because for 27 years, you know, the regime told us nobody will join. Okay, we can hear you. Yes, yes, yes. Okay. Let me just post one, which has come from Philip Beck of the IAA. Is there a role for Irish professionals who would adopt similar Belarus professionals who are political prisoners through organizations like Liberico, Amnesty International and so on, such as teachers, teacher to teacher, engineer to engineer, doctor to doctor. So the background is that there have been recent reports about Irish politicians doing this, and this is very encouraging so the question really is, it wants to see whether that could be done on a broader scale. The political prisoners became the super action which united many parliaments around the world on both sides of the Atlantic and it's helped to raise awareness not only about the prominent figures not only about presidential candidates but also about regular man and women, doctors, teachers, people of different professions and ages, who were kidnapped and jailed by Lukashenko regime. And there are some other initiatives that also allow foreigners to help Belarus and civil society and political prisoners. For example, it's possible to buy food packages for political prisoners online. So for example, you want to help the family you can go online you can pay the for the package and volunteers on the ground will form this package and will give to the prisoner you want to, you want to support and help. Encourage different civic groups, especially universities, schools, high schools, professional associations to help their peers colleagues in Belarus. Sometimes with teachers doctors workers it's much easier because there are formed institutions, but in some like in you with some specific professions, it could be difficult to find peers. So, in case if you are represented like popular profession like doctor, we recommend you to find them, or to support or to get in touch with the fund medical solidarity fund, which was formed and under after events last August, and which allows which which help doctors who are repressed by Lukashenko regime. You can find this initiatives online, but also we will be happy on the website of St. Lanets, you can you can check it out or but we will be also happy to share, you know the contacts for different groups and whom to help with whom to be in touch. But again, I think youth, especially high schools and universities, universities could be could be mutually beneficial for Belarusians to feel the support, but for foreigners also to learn from Belarusians what they feel what they're getting through. And especially for high school students in Ireland, I think it will be important experience to get to hear directly from and people in Belarus what they're what they suffer what they think about what they feel. Thank you very much. So then we're coming towards the end of this of this session. And I just wanted really to come back to what you would like Ireland to do. You've you said it at the beginning, you've sketched out a number of things on which we can be helpful. And I'm sure that colleagues at the Irish mission to the UN will have noted what you said about an area formula meeting. I think that that makes a lot of sense. And we are on the Security Council at the moment, as you know, and I'm sure that thought will be given to ways in which we can support the moves towards peaceful political change in Belarus. Is there anything you'd like to say, finally, just directed specifically at Ireland? We are obviously part of the consideration of sanctions within the EU, and you've had meetings with the T-Shark and the the the Foreign Minister this week. But is there anything that you are there any messages for the Irish people that you would like to close off with? All the political messages I declared in my speech, you know, about putting children of political prisoners in your Chernobyl program, you know, for children could visit Ireland and have rest about about area formula about assistance to Belarusians. But you asked about Irish people, ordinary people, you know, really a lot can be done. And, for example, when yesterday I was at my host family, I asked Henry Dean, you know, he visit church every day. And I told him to print the addresses of prisons where political prisoners are situated and give it to every person who is in church and say them, right, come home and try to relate it to political prisoners. And it will take 10 minutes of your life, but it will make the whole day for those who are behind the bars. They are so happy to receive letters from people, especially abroad. You know, it can be done in universities, in high schools, you know, you can even organize such lectures where you talk about democracy, that you are got used to it. You stop to value this, but there are countries that are where people losing their lives and freedom just, you know, fighting for these values. You can support those people and leave 10 minutes of this lecture for writing letters. It's very, very important step. Usually people can retweet our messages, can be active on Instagram, for example, to promote the idea of Belarusian people and never be afraid to make a small step. Because when we are millions, there are already millions of steps. So I ask Irish people to be with us and it's better to do something than not to do anything at all. So I really grateful for those who are already doing something and I'm grateful for those who will find a strength and do something else or something, you know, open something new in themselves. And because, you know, I had to repeat that we believe that Belarus can be success story, and I ask you to be the part of this, you know, success to democracy. Svetlana, thank you so much for a very powerful and disturbing, I have to say, account of what's happening in Belarus at the moment and of the challenges which you and your colleagues as Democrats are facing. We on this call have benefited greatly from your insights, but also your inspiration and from the generosity with which you have answered the questions. Thanks also to Vranek. We've covered a lot of ground, we've taken a lot of your time, but I'm sure I speak on behalf of everybody and thank you warmly for what you've told us, and especially with those parting messages, which I'm sure strike home for all of us. Lovely to see you in Ireland again, and we look forward to seeing you hopefully in person on a future occasion. In the meantime, warmest thanks and solidarity with everything that you and your colleagues are doing. Thank you for being with us. Thank you gentlemen and ladies for your attention. Goodbye.