29 March 2024, Friday, 17:13
Support
the website
Sim Sim,
Charter 97!
Categories

Young leader Alyaksei Shydlouski received political asylum in Czech Republic

9

The Czech Ministry of Internal Affaires adopted a decision on granting political asylum to the activist of the Belarusian opposition.

This decision was taken after a second application of the Belarusian oppositionist. Shydloluski asked for political asylum on February 5, 2008, for the first time. The Czech MFA dismissed the application referring to the Dublin Convention: an asylum seeker should apply for asylum in a state that granted a visa for a longer term (at that moment A. Shydlouski had two visas – a yearly Lithuanian one and a three-day Czech one).

After expelling from the Czech Republic, Shydlouski didn’t returned to Belarus, but lived in Ukraine.

In an interview to the Charter’97 press center, Alyaksei Shydlouski said the Ministry of Internal Affaires of the Czech Republic learnt the materials of his case and his oppositional activity in Belarus and admitted that the Belarusian activist had suffered from politically motivated persecution.

Alyaksei Shydlouski’s wife Maryna Lebedzeva received political asylum, too. The family is promised to get an apartment and social aid within a year. Alyaksei Shydlouski and his wife were given documents and work permissions today. They can receive Czech citizenship in five years if they want.

It should be reminded that the opposition activist had to seek political asylum after a criminal case over part 3 of article 339 of the Criminal Code, providing up to 10 years in prison, had been instigated against him in Belarus in late 2007. The criminal case was instigated on a fight in a shop, caused by a quarrel with a shop assistant over portrait of Alyaksandr Lukashenka. A. Shydlouski said the fight was

In February 1998, A. Shydlouski was sentenced to 1.5 year in prison over charge of hooliganism (drawing anti-president graffiti on walls of houses in Stalbtsy town of the Minsk region). In 2001, he was sentenced to two year of correction labour and expelled from the Institute of Modern Knowledge for his activity in “Zubr” youth movement.

Write your comment 9

Follow Charter97.org social media accounts