| schema:articleBody
| - Belarusia's exiled opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya urged Austria on Monday to act as mediator in the political crisis in Belarus and said the international community needed to do more to help the pro-democracy movement in her country. "We are looking for partners who can be mediators for these negotiations and Austria was one of the leading participants of these mediations," she told AFP. "So we came here to discuss once again on the possibility of organising any meetings at the expert level or just round-tables that will lead us to negotiations with (President Alexander) Lukashenko." The Belarusian strongman claimed victory for a sixth term in August elections that were widely criticised internationally and by the opposition as fraudulent. Tikhanovskaya, who says she won the vote, fled abroad after state authorities arrested hundreds of people taking part in mass protests and sentenced many to lengthy jail terms. The 38-year-old opposition leader told AFP those jailed were being tortured and urged the international community to act more forcefully with Lukashenko's regime and to impose tougher sanctions. "At the moment, just imagine, we have 358 political prisoners, more than 1,000 people in jail for politically-motivated cases and, since August, 25,000 have been detained," she said. "We have to expand individual sanctions lists (to include) judges and policemen involved in these atrocities." Tikhanovskaya has been staying in Lithuania since fleeing her home country and has been working tirelessly to draw attention to the crisis in Belarus and seek support for new elections. She is to meet on Tuesday with Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen and the following day with Chancelor Sebastian Kurz. Austria, which adopted the status of neutrality, is one of Belarusia's key economic partners. Two Austrian companies --Raiffeisen and A1 -- control respectively one of the largest banks in Belarus and the telecoms company Velcom. "When A1 denies access to Internet during demonstrations, it influences people badly," Tikhanovskaya said. "A1 as a business company from a democratic country should understand that this cooperation with the regime means cooperation against the people in Belarus," she added. Tikhanovskaya is also set to meet representatives of the Vienna-based Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). The OSCE had offered to mediate in the Belarus crisis following the contested August 9 election but received no response. Tikhanovskaya, a former teacher, decided to enter politics when her husband, opposition blogger Sergei Tikhanovsky, was prevented from running in the elections. He was subsequently detained on charges of violating public order and faces 15 years in prison. "He will be brought to trial and I hope to see him at least on TV because I haven't seen him for 11 months," Tikhanovskaya said. bg/anb/jz/wai
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)