CNN
—
President Joe Biden issued a sweeping executive order Monday to target those in the Belarusian regime involved in the repression of human rights and democracy in the former Soviet state.
The executive order was released on the one year anniversary of Belarus’ election, which was declared fraudulent by the United States and sparked widespread protests throughout the country.
“One year ago today, the people of Belarus sought to make their voices heard and shape their own future through that most basic expression of democracy – an election,” Biden said in a statement Monday. “Rather than respect the clear will of the Belarusian people, the Lukashenka regime perpetrated election fraud, followed by a brutal campaign of repression to stifle dissent.”
The executive order expands on one issued in 2006 to include “illicit and oppressive activities stemming from the August 9, 2020, fraudulent Belarusian presidential election and its aftermath, such as the elimination of political opposition and civil society organizations and the regime’s disruption and endangering of international civil air travel.”
It allows for “the imposition of blocking sanctions on persons operating in certain identified sectors of the Belarus economy, including the defense and related materiel sector, security sector, energy sector, potassium chloride (potash) sector, tobacco products sector, construction sector, transportation sector, or any other sector of the Belarus economy as may be determined by the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State,” according to a White House fact sheet.
The Treasury Department also issued its largest tranche of sanctions on Belarus to date, according to the fact sheet, including against Belaruskali OAO – a potash producer that is one of Belarus’s largest state-owned enterprises; the Belarusian National Olympic Committee, which is accused of facilitating money laundering, sanctions evasion, and the circumvention of visa bans, and which the International Olympic Committee has publicly reprimanded for its failure to protect Belarusian athletes from political discrimination and repression”; and “prominent businesspeople who support the Lukashenka regime as well as fifteen companies with which they are affiliated.”
Belarus’ strongman leader Alexander Lukashenko, who has been shunned by much of the international community and has been under US sanctions since 2006, has cracked down sharply on protesters and journalists in the country.
“From detaining thousands of peaceful protesters, to imprisoning more than 500 activists, civil society leaders, and journalists as political prisoners, to forcing the diversion of an international flight in an affront to global norms, the actions of the Lukashenka regime are an illegitimate effort to hold on to power at any price. It is the responsibility of all those who care about human rights, free and fair elections, and freedom of expression to stand against this oppression,” Biden said.
“The United States will continue to stand up for human rights and free expression, while holding the Lukashenka accountable, in concert with our allies and partners. Toward that end, today, we are issuing a new Executive Order that enhances our ability to impose costs on the regime and announcing new sanctions against Belarusian individuals and entities for their role in attacks on democracy and human rights, transnational repression, and corruption,” he said. “As I told the leader of the Belarusian opposition, Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya, we stand with the people of Belarus as they bravely pursue their democratic aspirations.”
Biden met with Tsikhanouskaya in Washington, DC, at the end of July.
This story is breaking and will be updated.