BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union extended by a year a package of sanctions including asset freezes against individuals and companies linked to the Belarus government because of Minsk's poor human rights record.
Sanctions are part of a policy the EU calls "critical engagement" with the government of President Alexander Lukashenko, an attempt to push it to implement reforms.
The EU last year widened a travel ban and an asset freeze to 225 people for rights violations while the assets of 25 companies were also blocked. Those came on top of an arms embargo imposed in June 2011.
The EU said on Thursday that it would remove 24 individuals and seven companies from the list but the remaining names would continue to be blacklisted following a review.
"The Council today extended EU restrictive measures against Belarus until 31 October 2015. This is because not all political prisoners have been released and rehabilitated, and the respect for human rights, the rule of law and democratic principles has not significantly improved in Belarus," it said in a statement.
In June, Belarus unexpectedly freed one leading rights activist, Ales Belyatsky, who had been jailed for tax evasion in November 2011 in what the EU called a "clearly politically motivated" sentence.
Details of the sanctions extension will be published in the EU's Official Journal on Friday. Lukashenko has run the ex-Soviet state since 1994.
(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee, editing by John Stonestreet)