The United States is considering imposing sanctions on seven Belarusians it believes were involved in falsifying the results of the Aug. 9 election and in violence against peaceful protesters, a senior State Department official said on Tuesday.
“We’ve got a group of seven people that we are working with Treasury for the evidentiary package” to impose sanctions, the official told Reuters, saying that the United States was likely to discuss the punitive measures publicly in the coming days.
“It is a minimal effort to ... not just name and shame but to show that when people both steal elections and commit violence against peaceful protesters exercising fundamental freedoms of assembly and speech that there needs to be some accountability,” added the official.