Artur Finkevich in the list of restricted from traveling abroad

16.05.2008. Tags: Finkevich, foreign travel restrictions.
Source: Charter`97.

One of the Young Front leaders restricted from leaving Belarus since 14 May.

In the morning of 13 May, when the Young Front deputy head Artur Finkevich was riding in a car with his colleagues to the Belarusian-Lithuanian border (Kamenny Loh), Belarusian customs officers tried not to allow him to cross the border. They explained his name was in the list of temporally restricted to leave Belarus.

One of the border crossing officers made a decision to permit Finkevich to cross the border.

In the night of May 14th, when Artur Finkevich and his colleagues were returning to Belarus, Belarusian customs officers called all officials of the customs station as soon as they saw his passport at a passport check-point. As it was found out, all customs officers had been ordered to stop Finkevich , inform him officially he was temporally restricted from leaving Belarus and to stamp his passport with such a restriction.

Finkevich was invited to the customs station, where an officer told him he was restricted from traveling abroad since 25 April 2008, and gave him a passport stamp that temporally restricts him from leaving Belarus.

Artur Finkevich commented on the situation: “I think this action was planned by the Belarusian secret services, who tapped our conversations and knew about the planned signing of an agreement and a number of important meetings in Vilnius. So, they were going to break the signing of the agreement and our scheduled meetings. I am thankful to the customs officer, who decided to let me to Lithuania, and I am sure day by day there will be more people like him in all government agencies.”