UK and Canada have slapped sanctions on Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko, his son and senior figures in the regime for a string of human rights violations.

Lukashenko and seven other individuals will be subject to an immediate travel ban and asset freeze, in response to the disputed recent elections and crackdown on protesters.

“The travel ban and asset freeze on a total of eight individuals sent a clear message to Lukashenko’s violent and fraudulent regime that we don’t accept the results of this rigged election,” UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said on Tuesday.

He added, “We will hold those responsible for the thuggery deployed against the Belarussian people to account and we will stand up for our values of democracy and human rights.”

Raab, who is currently on a visit to South Korea, has previously threatened sanctions against the Belarussian strongman as a result of the August 9 vote.

He has denounced what he said was the “grisly repression” of unprecedented protests over the result, and demanded an independent international investigation.

The 27-member European Union has also threatened Lukashenko’s regime with sanctions, but efforts to impose them have been vetoed by Cyprus. 

The restrictions against Lukashenko are the first against a country’s leader under the new sanctions regime, and stops him from travel to the UK and Canada, or channelling money through banks.

They come as French President Emmanuel Macron promised to help with mediation in the political crisis, earning a strong rebuke from Russia’s Vladimir Putin at “external pressure”.

Belarus, a former Soviet republic closely allied with Russia, has been rocked by street protests since authorities said Lukashenko won an August 9 election by a landslide.

More than 12,000 protesters have been arrested since the election that the opposition denounced as rigged.

The European Union had earlier said Lukashenko was not the president of Belarus.

But Russia, Belarus’s closest ally, said the EU decision not to recognise Lukashenko amounted to indirect meddling in the country.

Meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron became on Tuesday the highest-profile Western leader to visit the exiled opposition leader of Belarus, pledging European support for the country’s people.

Opposition candidate Sviatlana Tsikhounskaya fled to neighbouring Lithuania after the election. She has met the prime ministers of Lithuania, Norway and Poland, but Macron is the first leader of a major Western power to meet her.

“We had a very good discussion but now we need to be pragmatic and to support the Belarusian people and we will do our best, believe me”, Macron said after the 45-minute meeting at his hotel in Vilnius.

Tsikhanouskaya said Macron had promised “to do everything to help with negotiations, (during) this political crisis in our country … and he will do everything to help to release all the political prisoners.”

Moscow has made clear it continues to back Lukashenko as leader of Russia’s closest ally. The West has had to balance its sympathy for the pro-democracy movement with its reluctance to provoke Moscow.

On Monday, Macron urged Belarus authorities to stop unlawful arrests, release protesters detained arbitrarily and respect election results.

(with inputs from agencies)