Belsat journalist banned from leaving Belarus


More names of the people blacklisted by the Belarusian authorities have become known today.

On the morning of March 15, the chairperson of BAJ Zhanna Litvina was going to leave for Warsaw from airport “Minsk-2”. At the passport control border guards informed her that she was banned temporarily to leave the country, and put a travel ban stamp into her passport. “As a matter of fact, it is outrageous,” Ms. Litvina told BelaPAN. “On March 15, the country’s Constitution Day, they give me a stamp that violates my constitutional right to travel abroad. I believe that they did not use the stamp previously at all.”

Mikhas Yanchuk, Belsat official representative, was prohibited from crossing the Belarusian border in the early hours of Thursday. His passport has also been stamped.

As it was reported before, persons who call on foreign states and international organizations to impose economic and other sanctions against Belarus may be subjected to a temporary ban on foreign travel and even to criminal prosecution, Pavel Radzivonau, a departmental head at the Prosecutor General’s Office, told reporters in Minsk on March 1, 2012.

So far, ten persons are known to be banned from travelling abroad: human rights defenders Valyantsin Stefanovich and Andrey Bandarenka, Nasha Niva Editor-in-Chief Andrey Dynko, Anatol Liabedzka and Alexander Dabravolski (the United Civic Party), Siarhei Kalyakin (Fair World, the Belarusian Party of the Left), Viktar Karnyayenka (Movement for Freedom), Aleh Hulak, Mikhas Yanchuk and Zhanna Litvina. They were not given any explanations being referred to the Department of Citizenship and Migration. Belarusian Helsinki Committee Chairman Aleh Hulak was told at a district citizenship and migration office in Minsk that he was under a foreign travel ban.

Today Zhanna Litvina and Aleh Hulak are to hold a press-conference for journalists and BAJ members who have faced this difficulty lately.

Belsat

www.belsat.eu/en

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