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Japan follows EU, U.S. in bashing Belarus election+(Japan Economic Newswire Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)TOKYO, March 22_(Kyodo) _ Japan on Wednesday criticized Sunday's presidential election in Belarus for being undemocratic, following the line of the European Union and the United States. "Our country regrets that there were many actions contradicting the principle of a democratic election that were observed in this election," Yoshinori Katori, the Japanese Foreign Ministry's press secretary, said in a news conference. He added that Japan will continue efforts to ensure democracy in Belarus. Apart from issuing a press secretary's statement, Katori said Junichi Maruyama, the ministry's deputy director general at the European Affairs Bureau, called Leonid Batyanovsky, Belarus' charge d'affaires in Japan, to convey Japan's message over the election. Batyanovsky said in response that he will relay the message to his home government, according to Katori. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko was elected to a third term on Sunday, in an election that fell far short of international standards, according to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which monitored the election. Alleged human rights abuses and the arrest and beatings of opposition candidates brought thousands of protesters to the capital, and led the European Union to criticize the government for not maintaining "democratic standards." The United States has also called the election illegitimate. For the election, Japan dispatched four observers to the International Election Observation Mission of the OSCE and the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights to try to ensure that a fair election be conducted. |