The foreign policy chief's of the European Union and the United States issued a joint appeal Thursday for the release of hundreds of opposition activists arrested in Belarus following flawed elections on Sunday, DPA reported.
Police used violence and mass arrests to disperse crowds of people protesting alleged fraud favouring the re-election of incumbent President Aleksander Lukashenko. Several opposition leaders were beaten up and detained in the process.
"The United States and the European Union reiterate their call for the immediate release of the presidential candidates and the over 600 demonstrators who have been taken into custody in the wake of the presidential elections in Belarus," EU High Representative Catherine Ashton and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in a statement.
Ashton and Clinton said the conduct of the elections and the events that followed them "represent an unfortunate step backwards in the development of democratic governance and respect for human rights in Belarus."
In recent years, the EU and US have both eased their sanctions against the Lukashenko regime, in a bid to encourage progress on human rights.
The EU has suspended the application of a visa ban, which the US continues to apply. But US authorities have stopped implementing an asset freeze on two subsidiaries of Belarus' state petrochemical conglomerate, Belnaftakhim.
Ashton and Clinton stressed that, "without substantial progress" in democratic and human rights standards, "relations will not improve" with Belarus.
"It is against this background that we will be assessing the government of Belarus' actions to address the current situation and to take developments into account as we review our relations with Belarus," they concluded.