Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. I am honoured to testify here. It's a great pleasure to be in Canada. We are looking forward to telling you what's going on in our country.
I'm running for president this year. It's a unique chance to deal with a couple of issues that are of very great concern to all of us.
First of all, it's about human rights and freedoms. The Lukashenko regime has failed to deliver on even minor liberalization of human rights and freedom issues. The latest local election campaign proved that things have become even worse.
On May 17, the huge, aggressive assault on the movement “Tell the Truth!” proved that Lukashenko has chosen to carry out a campaign based on the use of crude force rather than constructive dialogue with all political forces. So for us, a presidential campaign is another chance to improve dramatically the situation with regard to human rights.
Secondly, the regime has not delivered on the improving of election legislation, so there are huge risks that this particular campaign will also lead to massive falsification of the results of the elections. That's why we're determined to defend our victory in the face of the governmental repression.
Another issue that is very important for us is to take the opportunity of the presidential election campaign to improve the situation with regard to freedom of expression. Journalists are being prosecuted on a regular basis. People are jailed for their civic activism. Let me just give you the example of Andrey Bandarenka and Victor Aftohovitch, who have been in prison for five to six years for their participation in the parliamentary election campaign and their attempts to resist the authorities.
Finally, the presidential election campaign is a chance for us to end Belarus being a source of external danger. It's one thing for the Belarusian regime to be a danger to the Belarusian people; it's another thing that the regime poses dangers to the international community by dealing with such states as Iran, Syria, and other countries. Most of these deals are not transparent and we'd like to be back within the international community. We'd like to join the ranks of the Council of Europe. That is why our campaign is aimed at democratizing Belarus and at bringing freedom to our country.
We look forward to the support of Canada, which has a unique role nowadays as the country that can afford and does have policies based on values rather than on pragmatism. We look forward to enhancing cooperation.
My colleagues will add further testimony.