Minsk police detain Ukrainian human rights defender for 2 hours

Ukrainian human rights activist Maria Yesenovskaya was detained in Minsk hotel Spadarozhnik on October 24 night, Lawtred reported on Facebook. Yesenovskaya was taken to the October District Department of the Interior and documents forbidding her to enter Belarus were presented to her there at about 1 a.m.

Belarusian human rights defenders interfered. Chairperson of the Office for the Rights of the Handicapped Syarhei Drazdouski arrived in a wheelchair. It was him who had invited Yesenovskaya to Minsk. Ukrainian diplomats also negotiated with the police.

The Ukrainian was let off and allowed to stay in Belarus ‘to stick to her plans’. However, the human rights defender had to give written explanations of her visits to Belarus in 2010, 201 and now.

Maria Yesenovskaya was added on the KGB list of people posing a threat to Belarus’ national security in 2014.

Maria Yesenovskaya is the leader of the analytical group of the International Human Rights Observation Mission in the Republic of Belarus.