Tag Archive for: Belarus

Here’s How The Biden Admin Treated Countries Who Kicked Candidates Off The Ballot

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The Biden administration has enacted or threatened sanctions against foreign nations who have kicked opposition candidates off the ballot, leading some lawmakers to question the Colorado Supreme Court’s ruling this week to remove former President Donald Trump from the state’s 2024 election ballot.

The Colorado Supreme Court ruled in a 4-3 decision on Tuesday to remove Trump from the state 2024 election ballots, having decided he is disqualified to run for office under the 14th Amendment’s “insurrectionist ban,” despite the former president not being criminally convicted of such an offense. The Biden administration has previously used sanctions in retaliation against foreign nations who engaged in stifling political competition and removing opponents from election ballots, as several lawmakers have pointed out this week.

“The U.S. has put sanctions on other countries for doing exactly what the Colorado Supreme Court has done today,” Republican Florida Sen. Marco Rubio said on Tuesday.

“We’d threaten sanctions against countries that had their courts exclude a challenger to protect the incumbent,” Republican Utah Sen. Mike Lee said Tuesday.

Venezuela, a socialist dictatorship in Central America, was sanctioned by the former Trump administration for undemocratic practices. The Biden administration started to lift some of those sanctions in October if Venezuela agreeing to certain conditions, including a commitment to holding fair elections in 2024 and allowing dictator Nicolas Maduro’s political opponents to appear on the ballot.

“Failure to abide by the terms of the agreement will lead the United States to reconsider steps we have taken, including the easing of sanctions,” Biden’s State Department told the DCNF in November.

However, less than a month after agreeing to the Biden administration’s terms, Venezuelan courts suspended the results of his political opposition leader’s primary election victory results. The suspension was handed down by Venezuela’s top court, which ruled that the opposition leader must be investigated for alleged identity theft, money laundering and conspiracy.

The Biden administration continues to push Venezuela toward holding free elections next year. The administration maintains its warning that it will take measures, including reimposing sanctions, if Maduro’s government does not hold to its word.

However, no sanctions have thus far been reimposed.

Nicaragua, a nation under dictatorship in Central America, had its government hit with sanctions from the Biden administration in 2021, according to the Treasury Department. The Biden administration explained they were imposing sanctions against Nicaragua because of its 2021 “sham election,” as the country’s government removed most of incumbent President Daniel Ortega‘s political opponents from the ballot.

Only five of Ortega’s political opponents were on the ballot in 2021, all of whom were not well known and had little chance of winning, according to CNN. Seven of Ortega’s other political opponents were not allowed to appear on the ballot after being “unjustly arrested” prior to elections, ensuring a “rigged outcome well before election day,” according to the Treasury Department and USA Today.

The Biden administration pointed to the government’s “groundless” misuse of Nicaragua’s Law 1055, which bans anyone deemed as a “traitor” by the country’s government from running for public office.

“The Ortega regime is using laws and institutions to detain members of the political opposition and deprive Nicaraguans from the right to vote,” Office of Foreign Assets Control Director Andrea M. Gacki said in a November 2021 statement. “We stand with the Nicaraguan people in their calls for reform and a return to democracy.”

Belarus, a country in eastern Europe with close ties to Russia, was hit with sanctions by the former Trump administration in 2020 over concerns the country held “fraudulent” elections that year by barring political opponents from the ballot and falsifying voting records, according to the Treasury Department. The Biden administration upheld these sanctions and castigated Belarus in a June 2021 statement for holding illegitimate elections by preventing “multiple opposition candidates from appearing on the ballot and restrictions on the ability of the opposition to campaign,” according to the Treasury.

“The United States and its partners will not tolerate continued attacks on democracy and the ceaseless repression of independent voices in Belarus,” Gacki said in a June 2021 statement. “Today’s actions, taken on both sides of the Atlantic, hold accountable those who continue to suppress the democratic aspirations of the Belarusian people.”

Several lawmakers and legal experts have denounced the Colorado Supreme Court’s Tuesday ruling as unconstitutional. The Trump campaign immediately disputed the court’s ruling and said it would quickly move to appeal.

Though he wouldn’t comment on the Colorado Supreme Court’s Tuesday ruling, Biden did tell reporters on Wednesday that there’s “no question” Trump incited an insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

“Well, I think certain things are self-evident. You saw it all,” Biden said Wednesday. “Now, whether the 14th Amendment applies, I’ll let the court make that decision. But he certainly supported an insurrection. No question about it. None. Zero.”

The White House did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

AUTHOR

JAKE SMITH

Contributor.

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EXCLUSIVE: What Joe Biden Can Learn From Poland Building A Wall On Its Border With Belarus

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The Biden administration has failed to ensure the security of the U.S. and should look at Poland’s example if it wants to successfully secure the southern border, a Polish government minister, Marcin Romanowski, told the Daily Caller.

Poland is building a wall on its border with Belarus after thousands of illegal migrants threatened to cross its border in August. The EU accused Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenka of facilitating the wave of migrants and trying to destabilize Poland.

“Tens of thousands of migrants from the Middle East arrived by air to [Belarussian capital] Minsk, and then were transported to the border,” Under Secretary of State for the Ministry of Justice Romanowski said Friday in an exclusive interview, arguing that Russia was responsible for aiding Belarus getting the migrants to Poland.

“Only thanks to the rapid, energetic and responsible reaction of the Polish Government and the dedication of thousands of border guards, soldiers and policemen, it was possible to secure the border in time,” Romanowski said. “To combat further threats, we want to build a wall along the entire border.”

President Joe Biden has refused to continue the construction of the wall at the southern border, despite a record number of illegal migrants flooding into the country. U.S. Border Patrol encountered over 1.7 million illegal migrants at the southern border for fiscal year 2021, and a record-breaking 200,000 migrants were apprehended in July alone. Migrants from at least 40 different countries have come through Yuma, Arizona, through a hole in the wall known as “The Gap.”

Romanowski called Biden’s refusal to build a wall purely “ideological.”

“A permanent border barrier saves both money and security – not only for officers, but also for the people and the national budget. The wall would go a long way to curbing human trafficking and drug smuggling that’s thriving at the moment,” Romanowski said. “President Biden [should] stick to the plan introduced by President Trump and put ideology aside. The lives and safety of U.S. citizens should be primary concern for the federal government.”

U.S. Customs Border Patrol confiscated 11,201 pounds of fentanyl in fiscal year 2021 — a 134% increase from the year before.

Left-leaning media and politicians have criticized Poland’s wall, citing human rights and environmental issues. Environmentalists have raised concerns about harm to animal migration paths if the wall is constructed through the primeval Bialowieza forest, which is on the Polish-Belarussian border.

Romanowski called these arguments “false,” and noted the “dangerous conditions in which Polish border and military officers operate.”

“Belarusian services provoke incidents every day, they cut through barbed wire and even fire shots at Poles. The only way of stopping Lukashenka and illegal migrants is to build the wall,” he said, blasting celebrities and left-leaning politicians who are “calling for unconditional entry of anyone at the border.”

Poland wants to accept legal migrants “who want to legally live and work here honestly, and become part of our nation,” Romanowski continued, mentioning the thousands of Ukrainian migrant workers that come across the border. “Poland has a rich tradition of multiculturalism and tolerance. Like the United States, we are open to people who want to legally live and work here honestly, and become part of our nation.”

Illegal migrants that successfully enter Poland are placed in transit centers, where they wait, sometimes upwards to a year, to receive international protection from the EU, Romanowski claimed.

“Migrants usually do not want to wait and flee at the first possible opportunity… This is a serious problem because we usually know nothing about these people: their past, their connections, their political or ideological commitment,” he said.

Romanowski also praised U.S. support of Poland’s security in sending additional troops to the “eastern flank of NATO” amid the Russian threat to invade Ukraine, while criticizing Biden for letting Russia get this far in the first place.

“Until now, President Trump’s team has been drawing hard red lines to Moscow, keeping it at an appropriate distance,” he said. “Russia had never before dared to organize such large military maneuvers in the immediate vicinity of [Kyiv], nor had it directly threatened war.”

“We trust that the United States will not make the same mistake as under President Obama, when withdrawal from European affairs and resetting relations with Russia cost Ukraine the loss of Crimea,” he concluded.

COLUMN BY

DIANA GLEBOVA

Associate editor.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller Column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Poland vows to ‘defend Europe’ from ‘migrant invasion’ unleashed by Belarusian dictator Lukashenko

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Lukashenko’s motive:

Brussels accuses Belarus’s disputed leader of provoking the influx in retaliation against EU sanctions, imposed after his widely discredited re-election and subsequent crackdown on mass protests.

Days ago, Bulgaria sent 350 troops to the Turkish border as illegal Afghan migrant crossings tripled. “Migrants have described how Belarusian authorities seized their phones and pushed them towards the border fence. Overnight temperatures at the border have slumped below zero and several people have already died in recent weeks.”

But aside from political reasons, since the Syrian migrant crisis of 2015 and beyond, Poland has demonstrated its resolve in defending its borders and sovereignty from an invasion of Muslim migrants, while the EU undermined Polish efforts, relentlessly pressuring Poland (and Hungary) to take in migrant “quotas.”

During the Syrian crisis, the Islamic State found success in infiltrating the refugee stream, thanks to reckless politicians. The risk from jihadist infiltration of countries with open borders is no less now with the influx of refugees from Afghanistan.

While most of the globalist EU supports open, unvetted migration, as well as the UK’s Boris Johnson government, despite the fact that Britain left the EU due to open-door immigration.

Warsaw called the “action ‘an invasion’ and declared it was sending 12,000 troops to reinforce 10,000 already stationed along the frontier.” This should serve as an example to other EU countries, some of which are beginning to wake up. 12 EU countries were recently rejected by the EU for their request for EU financing to help build barrier walls to keep out illegal migration from Afghanistan, which presents obvious security issues.

We will defend our country and the entire EU’: Polish soldiers force back hundreds of migrants at the border with pepper spray after Belarus dictator Lukashenko sent 1,000 refugees to invade

by Will Stewart, Ed Wight, Ross Ibbetson, and David Averre, MailOnline, November 8, 2021:

Poland has vowed to ‘defend Europe’ from a ‘migrant invasion’ unleashed by Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko whose forces have coerced more than 1,000 refugees to smash through the border.

Desperate migrants gathered at the Belarusian frontier with Poland on Monday, attempting to hack down a barbed-wire fence only to meet a phalanx of Polish guards who forced them back with pepper spray.

Middle Eastern and African migrants have been flown into Belarus by Lukashenko who is using them as human cannon fodder in his battle with the EU, the US and Britain, after they imposed sanctions following a violent political crackdown, which included forcing a Ryanair flight from the sky in May.

Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said: ‘The Polish government is determined and we will defend the security of our country and the entire EU, respecting our international obligations and bearing in mind, above all, the interests of the state and the safety of Polish soldiers, Border Guard officers and citizens.’

Warsaw called today’s action ‘an invasion’ and declared it was sending 12,000 troops to reinforce 10,000 already stationed along the frontier.

Polish soldiers were seen pepper-spraying the migrants from behind a barbed-wire barrier as the desperate people tried to hack it down with branches and spades.

At other sections of the line, small children were held up by desperate parents who pleaded with the Polish forces to let them through, while others chanted: ‘Germany,’ renowned for its hospitality towards refugees.

Poland said on Monday it had repelled an attempt by hundreds of migrants to illegally cross the border with Belarus, but that thousands more were on the way and future attempts to breach its frontier could be ‘armed in nature’.

Defense Ministry video taken later Monday showed the migrants settling in for the night by the border, having put up scores of tents and cooking meals.

A NATO official called the use of migrants ‘a hybrid tactic’, meaning a combined military-political operation, and said: ‘NATO stands ready to further assist our allies, and maintain safety and security in the region’….

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