LONDON—The U.K. and Canada imposed sanctions on Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko and senior figures in his government, a sign of widening discontent in the West over ongoing repression of peaceful protests against his purported victory in a disputed election.
British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab accused Mr. Lukashenko and his allies of multiple human-rights violations in detaining and allegedly torturing protesters following the Aug. 9 poll, which Mr. Lukashenko’s opponents and Western governments say was rigged in his favor to extend his more than a quarter-century in power.
Mr. Lukashenko, his son and national security advisor Viktor, and six other senior officials were banned from entering the U.K. and British-based financial institutions were ordered to freeze any of their assets they may hold. Canada issued travel bans and imposed asset freezes on 11 individuals, including Mr. Lukashenko and his son.
“We don’t accept the results of this rigged election. We will hold those responsible for the thuggery deployed against the Belarusian people to account and we will stand up for our values of democracy and human rights,” Mr. Raab said in a statement Tuesday.
Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs François-Philippe Champagne said: “Canada will not stand by silently as the Government of Belarus continues to commit systematic human rights violations and shows no indication of being genuinely committed to finding a negotiated solution with opposition groups.”
The move by Britain and Canada marks an escalation of punitive action by Western powers against Mr. Lukashenko using so-called Magnitsky sanctions, a set of measures designed to fight corruption and gross human-rights abuses. They were named after Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who died in a Moscow jail in 2009 after making allegations of fraud against Russian officials.
The U.S. and European Union are also considering new penalties against Mr. Lukashenko and his regime. Human-rights groups, political analysts and opposition activists say that during Mr. Lukashenko’s decades in charge, he has given security forces free rein to use arbitrary detentions, beatings and torture against those viewed as a threat to his power.
Almost 7,000 people were detained for protesting in the days immediately following the Aug. 9-13 vote, according to data from Belarus’ Interior Ministry, though nearly all were subsequently released.
Opposition supporters protested the country’s presidential inauguration in Minsk on Sunday.
Photo:
-/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
The detentions have continued as protests against Mr. Lukashenko have flowed into their seventh week, often attracting more than 100,000 participants on Sundays.
Mr. Lukashenko’s office and Belarus’s Interior Ministry didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the sanctions targeting the Belarusian leader and others. Neither Mr. Lukashenko’s office nor Belarus’s Interior Ministry have responded to several requests for comment about the treatment of detainees and the strong-arm tactics of law-enforcement officers. The ministry has previously apologized for how riot police treated protesters on the streets.
Mr. Lukashenko has been subject to U.S. sanctions since 2006, which have had limited success. The blacklisting banned his entry into the U.S. and froze any assets he had within U.S. territory. Several companies were also blacklisted because they were owned by Mr. Lukashenko.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo threatened further penalties after the abduction of several opposition leaders earlier this month. President Trump’s top diplomat and other senior administration officials called the August election a fraud.
“The United States, in coordination with our partners and Allies, is considering additional targeted sanctions to promote accountability for those involved in human rights abuses and repression in Belarus,” Mr. Pompeo said.
The Treasury Department, which would also handle the Magnitsky sanctions many human rights groups are urging against Mr. Lukashenko, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Mr. Pompeo said another option the U.S. could consider is halting special oil deliveries from the U.S. to Belarus that the country needs to meet its energy demand.
The U.S. Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, a government body that advises Treasury Department officials on sanctions, has also called for Secretary Steven Mnuchin to revoke a special license giving the nine largest state-owned companies in Belarus access to the U.S. financial system.
A majority of EU foreign ministers last week spoke in favor of sanctioning Mr. Lukashenko at a meeting in Brussels, though no final decision was taken. The EU has drawn up a list of targets for asset freezes and travel bans but sanctions have so far been blocked by Cyprus, which is demanding the EU simultaneously increase the pressure on Turkey over its gas drilling in contested waters in the Mediterranean Sea.
The issue will likely be taken up again when EU leaders meet later this week, diplomats say. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has said he is determined to see the EU sanctions in effect by the time foreign ministers next meet in early October.
Three Baltic states—Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania—have already imposed unilateral sanctions on Mr. Lukashenko and the European Parliament last week backed the moves. Diplomats said other countries, including Sweden, remain opposed for now.
—Laurence Norman, Ann Simmons and Ian Talley contributed to this article.
Write to Jason Douglas at jason.douglas@wsj.com
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