Dynko “called up for army”

He received an appropriate notice in the Citizenship and Migration Department.

The managing editor of “Nasha Niva” newspaper, Andrei Dynko, has been put on the list of banned from leaving Belarus for “evading the draft”. The appropriate notice was handed in to him in the Citizenship and Migration Department.

Dynko, 38, is a reserve senior lieutenant, so this reason for the travel ban is a legal nonsense.

A reserve officer cannot be drafted for military service. The process of appealing to court may take two month. Dynko has not received any summonses from the military enlistment office.

Andrei Bandarenka, a former political prisoner and head of Platform human rights organization, was banned from leaving the country on the same ground.

Bandarenka applied to the military enlistment office for explanations. “They said they did not draft me. They said it was nonsense and I, a reserve officer, was kidding with them,” Bandarenka said.

Zhanna Litvina, the head of the Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ), and Aleh Hulak, the chair of the Belarusian Helsinki Committee, learned the reasons for the travel ban earlier.

Litvina is said to be involved in the bankruptcy case. Hulak has a civil suit against him. The list of travel banned includes 108 names, a source from governmental bodies said. It became known on Monday that Professor Stanislau Shushkeivch, the first chair of the Supreme Court of independent Belarus, is among 208 individuals restricted to travel abroad. The country's national elite was in fact taken hostages.