The Vilnius-based public establishment Belarusian Human Rights House told BNS the petition was signed by 470 people over the weekend. The signatures were collected in central Vilnius on Saturday and Sunday, marking a year since Belyatsky's arrest.
The petition asks Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko to release Belyatsky and other political prisons “without delay and unconditionally.”
Anna Gerasimova, director of the Belarusian Human Rights House, told BNS the embassy's representative who met them at the gate was asked to hand over the petition to Belarusian Ambassador to Lithuania Vladimir Drazhin.
"The petition is addressed to the president of Belarus and the main purpose, of course, is to urge the Belarusian authorities to release Ales Belyatsky and other political prisoners. Not only release but fully rehabilitate them and reinstate their rights. And stop repressions against civil society organizations and the civil society in general," she said.
Gerasimova added that the petition and a rally of several dozen people outside the Belarusian Embassy on Monday were organized by a group of Lithuanian, Belarusian and Ukrainian public figures.
In the end of November 2011, a Minsk court sentenced Belyatsky, leader of the opposition organization Vesna, to 4.5 years in prison for tax evasion and confiscated all of his property.
The tax evasion charges were brought based on data received from Lithuania and Poland about his bank accounts.
The Western world censured the sentence, dismissing it as politically motivated. Lithuania apologized to Belyatsky's family, nut accused Minsk of abusing the international treaty for unlawful purposes.
