It seems that, with his reckless foreign policy, Berlusconi finds a new partner to add to the axis Rome-Tripoli-Moscow: Lukashenko’s Belarus, best known as the last European dictatorship. In only one year, Italy has become the European sponsor of Lukashenko, as Berlusconi pushed to break the curtain that has kept the regime isolated since 1994. Following the foreign minister’s visit last September, Berlusconi will be the first western leader coming to the Country since 1990’s. As we did with Frattini, we radicals ask Premier Silvio Berlusconi to put in his agenda a meeting with Belarusian political dissidents and human rights associations, in order for him to evaluate the state of civil rights in Belarus. The Nonviolent Radical Party, Transnational and Transparty is at disposal to provide names and addresses. To President Berlusconi, we ask not to forget, on his way to Minsk, that Belarus is the only State that retains death penalty in law, among the European and ex-Soviet countries. His visit can be a good chance for authorities in Minsk to adopt the Moratorium on Death Penalty, voted by the UN General Assembly two years ago.

(Translation credits: Benedetto Valenti)