Iryna Khalip may face 2 years in prison if she leaves Belarus

Dmitry Muratov, the editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta, figured out if the journalist could leave Belarus.

We remind that Lukashenka said to a BelaPAN journalists during yesterday's press conference that the wife of former presidential candidate Andrei Sannikov, who received political asylum in the UK, could leave Belarus.

“He says that I don't want to leave Belarus. I'd like to remind that it is continuation of the story that started with a question of Yevgeny Lebedev, the owner of The Independent and Evening Standard. He asked Lukashenka why Iryna Khalip could not go to Moscow. Lukashenka replied, if you remember, 'you can take her and go to Moscow right now'. He said I was free and could go.

In actual fact, control over me only tightened. The police visit me more often now.

When Novaya Gazeta editor-in-chief Dmitry Muratov came, he couldn't understand why there were no changes after the statement. He visited the corrections office of the Partyzanski district police department and talked the office head, who explained that I still had a conviction. My sentence is suspended for two years. The conviction wasn't removed, because Lukashenka didn't pardon me. How can I go abroad? An officer of the corrections office told Dmitry Muratov that if I go abroad, to Moscow for example, I will be sent to a women's prison in Homel,” Iryna Khalip told Radio Svaboda.

It should be reminded that the journalist was given a two-year suspended sentence for participating in a rally against the falsified presidential elections on December 19, 2010.