Europe’s doors closed for Charhinets and Orda

The Polish Embassy in Minsk has denied visas to Mikalai Charhinets and Mikhail Orda.

The chairman of the pro-regime Union of Belarusian Writers Mikalai Charhinets and a member of the “chamber of representatives” Mikhail Orda planned to attend the funeral of Andrzej Lepper, a Polish politician.

“I had filled in a questionnaire, made an insurance payment, and all the necessary documents had been submitted to the Polish Embassy in Minsk. We intended to travel to Poland in a car, to the place of our comrade’s funeral. Yesterday in the afternoon me and Mikhail Orda were told that we had been denied visas,” M. Charhinets told to Interfax-Zapad agency on Thursday.

“I had not been explained the reasons for the visa ban. However the underlying reason for this decision is the fact that I had been allegedly guilty of rigging the election results and crackdown on those who behaved like hooligans on December 19,” the head of the Union of Writers said.

As the Polish Embassy in Minsk told to the agency, “Mr Charhinets has been denied a visa as he is on the official list of persons banned entry to the EU.”

“Unfortunately, the Polish authorities have not given me a possibility to take part in a farewell ceremony of my loyal comrade, a well-known Polish politician, with whom we had a long-lasting friendship and an understanding that politicians and public leaders should do a lot to strengthen the relations between the two neighbouring countries,” M. Charhinets said.

As said by him, “thanks to Lepper a Belarusian-Polish inter-parliamentarian commission had been created once. It discussed possibilities of expanding cooperation in the situation of hostile attitude of the Polish leadership towards the leadership of Belarus,” he said.

M. Charhinets said that several times Lepper told him about mysterious circumstances surrounding deaths of some Polish politicians.

“Lepper was a cheerful person, a good mixer, he was never shy to enter into a debate, a dispute. I do not think that any debate or personal problems could cause a suicide,” stressed the head of the Union of Writers.