Ukrainian Human rights activist deported from Belarus

The human rights activist has spent the night in a cell and in the morning was deported to Ukraine.

An assistant of the International Observation Mission of the Committee on International Control over the Human Rights Situation in Belarus, a member of “Regional Initiatives Foundation”, a citizen of Ukraine Maxim Kitsyuk was denied a right to cross the Belarusian border, Vyasna human rights initiative reports.

The incident took place on March 9, 2011 at 3.20 a.m. while he was crossing the border in “Kyiv—Minsk” train.

As a colleague of Kitsyuk, Anton Holoborodko told, as informed by an officer of Homel border detachment, who was reached on the phone, the denial was explained by the fact that Maxim is banned from entering Belarus. According to information from the same source, at 9.10 a.m. Maxim Kitsyuk was made to go back to Ukraine in a train “St Petersburg-Kyiv.”

Later Maxim himself was contacted on the phone. As said by him, he was got off the train by Belarusian border guards. During documents check it was found out that his name was on the database of the Frontier Service with a note “No entry”. After he was got off the train, border guards sent an inquiry to Minsk, and the information about his status of being forbidden to enter the country was confirmed.

Maxim spent the night in a prison cell and in the morning he was sent to Ukraine in a train “St Petersburg-Kyiv” till the station of Gornostayevka with a stamp “deported” on his ticket.

The International Observation Mission was established by representatives of the NGOs of the OSCE space countries and international networks and organisations. It acts on behalf of the Committee on International Control over the Human Rights Situation in Belarus, which unites representatives of human rights organisations of the OSCE region and non-governmental organizations’ coalition. It is engaged in monitoring and control over the observation of fundamental human rights, conditions of human rights defenders and human rights organizations in the country. The organisation stresses that human rights are a direct concern of the international civil society and urges the authorities of Belarus to follow their international commitments in the sphere of human rights, and the OSCE participating countries – to respect principles of the OSCE and control fulfilment of these commitments.