The Adobe Flash Player is required to view this multimedia interactive. Get it here.

Germany: Belarus blocks rights official's visit

State directs $2.1M for scholarships
8:40 p.m.
Health policy help on way
8:27 p.m.
Dayton gets boost from committee for UAV testing
6:14 p.m.
Ohio can finally collect $2.3M in fines
10:22 a.m.
Local soldier looks for job while at war
8:07 a.m.
> More headlines

The Associated Press 10:51 AM Wednesday, February 8, 2012

BERLIN — Germany's human rights commissioner says Belarus has blocked his plans to visit the country and meet with a jailed human rights activist.

Markus Loening said he also wanted to give authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko a letter from Germany's foreign minister calling for a "humanitarian solution" to individual cases during a three-day visit to the former Soviet republic starting Wednesday.

Loening planned to meet with Ales Belyatsky, a leading Belarus rights activist who was convicted of tax evasion and imprisoned in November. His trial was widely criticized by U.S. and European officials as politically motivated.

Loening — who also hoped to meet with dissidents and relatives of other prisoners — said: "I very much regret that I am not welcome in Minsk."

___

February 08, 2012 03:48 PM EST

Share this article