Harry Pahanyaila added to list of “travel banned”

The lawyer of the Belarusian Helsinki Committee (BHC) was told the reason for the travel ban was a trial. But there was not any trial in reality.

Harry Pahanyaila visited the Citizenship and Migration Office ahead of his planned trip and insisted that officers should check if he was on the list of persons banned from travelling abroad, Euroradio reports.

The lawyer was not surprised to learn he was on the list of restricted to leave Belarus, but the reason for the ban shocked him.

“The document says the data in the databank were provided by the Ministry of Justice on the ground of a case on bankruptcy, over which I am considered a potential debtor. The decision was taken at a trial on 5.03.2012. However, I know nothing about the trial. I am heading to the Ministry of Justice right now to see and examine the information given by the court. I was not called to court and I do not know any cases relating to me!” the lawyer says.

He says if the trial really took place, he should have been invited to court and notified about the court decision.

We remind that several public activists were not allowed to leave the country in the recent days. On March 7, UCP leader Anatol Lyabedzka and Alyaksandr Dabravolski were not allowed to leave Belarus for Vilnius. Syarhei Kalyakin and Viktar Karnyaenka were stopped on the border on March 11. Human rights activist Valyantsin Stefanovich, his wife and two children were not allowed to cross the Belarusian-Lithuanian border on March 11. On March 14, “Nasha Niva” managing editor Andrei Dynko was ordered to get off the train on his way to Vilnius. Aleh Hulak was banned from leaving Belarus on the request of the Ministry of Justice in connection with a civil suit he had never heard of before.

Head of the Belarusian Association of journalists (BAJ) Zhanna Litvina was reported today to have been banned from crossing the Belarusian board. Human rights activist Andrei Bandarenka was ordered to get off the train as he was travelling from Minsk to Warsaw. Belsat journalist Mikhail Yanchuk was not allowed to leave Belarus.

On March 1, the chief of the office for legislative execution and legality of legal acts of the Prosecutor General's Office, Pavel Radzivonau, said opposition activists calling to impose sanctions against the Belarusian regime may be restricted to leave the country.