The members of the European Parliament sent a letter to the President of UEFA,

The letter reached the editorial office of Svoboda.

The deputies called on the UEFA president to suspend the Belarusian national team from participating in the qualification for the 2024 European Championship and to exclude the Belarusian team from Group I and the matches that will begin in the coming weeks.

"We consider it important that UEFA reconsiders its current position in relation to the Belarusian Football Federation.

From an international point of view, it is clear that the current measures are inadequate and do not reflect what the Belarusian authorities are doing in relation to human rights and other UEFA values.

More than 40,000 Belarusians have been detained or imprisoned since 2020, including many football players.

Almost 1,500 people in Belarus are recognized as political prisoners and face up to 20 years in prison.

For example, 48-year-old football coach Oleg Famin spent 2.5 years in a Belarusian prison on trumped-up charges.

These innocent detainees are subjected to torture and insults, which clearly violates their rights and freedoms.

A significant part of the Belarusian society now lives in fear, frightened by the fact that even minor signs of non-support of Lukashenka's regime could lead to the loss of their career or will.

Including Belarusian athletes.

Therefore, it is clear to us that those football players who are still in the Belarusian football team support Lukashenka's regime."

The authors of the letter mention that the leader of the democratic forces of Belarus, Svyatlana Tsikhanovskaya, was recently sentenced in absentia to 15 years in prison, and Pavel Latushka was also sentenced in absentia to 18 years in prison.

Earlier, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ales Bialiatski was sentenced to 10 years in prison and is currently serving his sentence.

In addition, they wrote that Belarus also takes an active part in the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, and independent observers report on missile strikes and shelling of Ukraine from the territory of Belarus.

"How can all these facts be reconciled with UEFA's values ​​and UEFA's matches, which should be a symbol of peace and cooperation embodied in the football family?

The very fact of the participation of the Belarusian national team in the UEFA championship will later be used by Lukashenka and his propaganda team to prove that he is well received in the international community."