Yurau: Medvedev will surely be reported about the list of "banned Russians”

The situation with human rights in Belarus became one of the key topics at the Friday session on the Russia’s President’s Council for development of the civil society. The head of the International observing mission for control of the situation with human rights in Belarus Andrej Yurau, recently deported from Belarus, was invited to make a speech there.

The Russian human rights defender has informed to Euroradio, that he told about the International observing mission, its activities and collected facts, in details, to the members of the presidential Council. He also came up with several suggestions.

Andrej Yurau: “First, we need to create a working group which would watch the situation with human rights in Belarus. We need a group in the presidential Council, which would conduct this work on a regular basis. This suggestion was supported as such necessity was an obvious thing. The second issue was that Belarusian lawyers had no possibility to work in Russia and Ukraine, while Russian and Ukrainian lawyers could not work in Belarus, in the framework of both the Union State and the CIS, due to some reasons”.

However, the main attention was paid to the list of Russian citizens, who are forbidden to enter our country.

Andrej Yurau: “The most important thing here is that this list can include an unlimited quantity of people. No one knows who is in the list – it’s a secret. People are included there without any procedures conducted by court authorities, or some unknown quazi-court authorities upon unclear legal grounds. It is unknown which actions may bring people there. Any Russian citizen can get into the list without knowing it, and become a criminal by crossing the non-existent border”.

Besides, the representative of the Belarusian MFA Andrej Savinykh has made an official statement that there are no “black lists” of Russians. Yurau was accused of interference into the internal affairs of Belarus, and his deportation was initiated by the KGB, not by the department of citizenship and migration. However, the human rights defender has a skeptical attitude to such statements.

Andrej Yurau: “I have a document, which is called “Notification”. It clearly says that I have been in some list since March 4, and the word “List” is written with a capital “L”. This very fact is the violation which I committed – I was not supposed to enter the territory of Belarus due to my presence in this list, but I entered. Therefore, I should leave it. I am not a politician or a story-teller. I have a document, and I see what I see. It says “In the List since March 4”. Everything else is made-up”.

Andrej Yurau has no doubts that all this Dmitri Medvedev will find this all out.

Andrej Yurau: “People from the President's administration were at the session. Moreover, I know it well, the members of the Council met with the Foreign Minister Lavrov after the session. I am hundred per cent sure that Belarus issue was discussed at that meeting”.

The human rights defender has warned that he is going to claim the 2-years prohibition to enter the territory of Belarus, and advised the law-enforcement agencies not to be too relaxed.

Andrej Yurau: “Let them watch all the trains, planes, buses, underpasses, balloons - in case I manage to visit you despite everything. Moreover, I will claim all the decisions legally, and I will start a broad informational campaign, as I think this is a direct violation of the right for free travelling”.

The Russian human rights defender has provided a copy of the document, which says he is in the list of persons who are forbidden to enter the territory of the Republic of Belarus and to stay there. However, the head of the administration on citizenship, passport work and leaving abroad of the Citizenship and Migration Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Ihar Ihnatovich has refused to give explanation with regard to the fact of existense of such document, and to answer the questions on the "banned Russians" list.

Photo: Zmitser Lukashuk