Unlawful Restriction of Foreign Travels to Anatol Liabedzka

14.12.2007. Tags: political persecution, United Civil Party, Liabedzka.
Source: Press-service of United Civil Party.

The chairman of the United Civil Party Anatol Liabedzka cannot receive a permissive seal for foreign travels for a month already. He believes that it is KGB who sanctioned this restriction.

‘The Belarusian society is still segregated’, stated Anatol Liabedzka. ‘The Constitution declares equality, but in reality some people are more ‘equal’ than the others, whom they try to ‘equalize’ in the needed direction. An ordinary citizen of Tsentralny district of Minsk needs only two weeks to receive a permissive seal, but what is a rule for one citizen, already becomes an exclusion for another.’

Anatol Liabedzka considers this fact as an attempt of psychological pressurization first of all. He also does not rule out that the authorities are thinking about banning foreign travels to their political opponents at all. ‘Anything can happen in the country, which, according to Aliaksandr Lukashenka, is more ready to join the EU than Poland or Lithuania: travel restrictions, imprisonment or even kidnapping. That’s why the present events are not the worst possible,’ he commented.

Anatol Liabedzka has quite difficult relations with the KGB. In 2002 it issued to Anatol Liabedzka an official warning for ‘State Treachery’ (a crime, which under the Criminal Code can be punished with death). In 2006 persons in masks seized Anatol Liabedzka. They drove him around Minsk for 10 hours and then dropped him off at the outskirts of Minsk and advised to ‘make right conclusions’ from this happening.