Harry Pahanyaila sues Interior Ministry

The first hearing over Harry Phanyaila's lawsuit against the Interior Ministry is scheduled for June 19.

Human rights activist Harry Pahanyaila demands “immediate removing the data provided by the Interior Ministry from the data base, launching rehabilitation actions and punishing the people guilty of dragging”.

Before his planned abroad trip in March, Pahanyaila went to the citizenship and migration department to check if he was put on the data base of persons restricted to travel abroad. Pahanyaila was told he couldn't leave Belarus until he paid money in a bankruptcy case.

In May, the Ministry of Justice said wrong entries in the Interior Ministry's data base of persons subject to travel ban might have appeared due to a technical glitch. Courts have not reported about the travel ban on the human rights activist.

Pahanyaila asked the Interior Ministry to remove his name from the blacklist, the official website of the Belarusian Helsinki Committee (BHC) reports. The Ministry replied it would check if the information of the Ministry of Justice was true.

The Interior Ministry has not answered yet, while the chair of the BHC justice commission Harry Pahanayila cannot travel outside Belarus.

We remind about 20 politicians, activists and journalists have recently been barred from leaving the country.