Belarus, Russia to develop a common travel-ban database by 2009?

The law-enforcement agencies in Belarus and Russia are developing a common database of citizens that are banned from crossing the border, Russian newspaper Novye Izvestia wrote on June 26, citing sources in the Belarusian government. It means that those who are on Belarus’s travel-ban backlist will be unable to leave Belarus through Russia. The European Radio for Belarus has asked Alexander Tsishchanka, the head of the Belarusian border committee’s press office, when the database could be launched.

“I can’t tell you any exact dates, because we talk about technical issues: the channels of communication, server bases. The information needs to be stored and made available at all the crossing points in a real-time mode. Specialists note it would require several months. It is hard to say whether it will be operational by the end of the year. The budget for this procedure is yet to be developed”, Tsishchanka said.

He did not agree with the report in Novye Izvestia that it was Minsk pushing for this measure.

“We are developing similar issues with Ukraine and EU, including the Baltic states and Poland. We have recently signed a memorandum with the OSCE Office in Minsk. During the signing ceremony, Mr Schmidt stressed that the European Union was also interested in databases on the border between Belarus and EU. Earlier, the European Union had created similar databases at the German-Poland border. Now, we are doing the same job”.

Tsishchanka also stressed that the talk is not only about preventing the blacklisted Belarusians from crossing Russian borders. The aim is also to block banned Russians from escaping through Belarus.

Tsishchanka: “Our database dubbed “criminological database”.

ERB: 260,000 people?

Tsishchanka: “You have to understand that not only Belarusians are among those 260,000 people. We have recently received a database from Interpol, which includes Russian nationals who committed grave crimes and are wanted by the police…

People should not try to make this issue political. Since Lyabedzka is being sued in a libel case, it is not the border guards who decide that he is restricted from traveling abroad”.

The Belarus Border Committee has stressed on its web site that it maintains close cooperation with EU, UN, OSCE, CIS, Europol and Interpol as well as with Ukraine and Russia in creating databases of people who are banned from leaving the country. There is only one border between Lisbon and Vladivostok: Belarus, Alexander Tsishchanka stressed.

Photo: Odinews