ILO Director-General welcomes BKDP leader Aliaksandr Yarashuk upon his release

On 17 September, an online meeting was held between recently released former political prisoner and leader of the Belarusian Congress of Democratic Trade Unions (BKDP), Aliaksandr Yarashuk, and ILO Director-General Gilbert Houngbo together with Maria Helena André, Director of the ILO Bureau for Workers’ Activities (ACTRAV). The meeting was also attended by Sergeyus Glovackas, Desk Officer for Eastern Europe and Central Asia at ACTRAV.

The ILO Director-General and the ACTRAV Director warmly welcomed Aliaksandr Yarashuk on his release, stressing that the Organization had made every effort to help achieve this outcome.

The discussion focused on the ILO’s priority tasks regarding the implementation of Paragraph 33 of the ILO Constitution by the Government of Belarus, with particular emphasis on the urgent release of the 24 trade union activists who remain behind bars.

Yarashuk informed ILO representatives that this crucial issue had also been at the center of his meeting the previous day, held together with former REP union leader Hennadz Fiadynich, with Luc Triangle, General Secretary of the ITUC. That meeting brought together the leadership of both Lithuanian trade union centers — LPSK і Solidarumas (Dalia Jakutavičė, Artūras Cherniauskas, Kristina Krupovichienė, and Jovita Pretzsch), as well as ACTRAV’s Sergeyus Glovackas, Anton Leppik, Executive Secretary of ITUC-PERC, and the current BKDP leadership, Maksim Pazniakou and Siarhei Antusevich.

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