Lithuania Has Issued Over 16K Long-Term Visas to Belarus Citizens in Past 9 Months
On 5/27/21 at 11:21 AM EDT
Thousands of Belarusians, fleeing political unrest in their home country, have taken refuge in Lithuania since nationwide protests against the regime of authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko began.
According to Lithuania s Migration Department, more than 16,000 Belarusians received long-term visas in the past nine months. Nearly 3,500 of them were issued as a humanitarian effort, implying political motivation.
The Lithuanian capital of Vilnius has become a sanctuary for the Belarusian opposition, where activists, human rights advocates, journalists and even an entire Belarusian university have found asylum. The diversion of the Ryanair flight, which was carrying the journalist Raman Pratasevich, by Lukashenko has rattled many who have sought safety in other countries.
May 27, 2021 Share
VILNIUS, Lithuania Viachka Krasulin said he was arrested and brutally beaten all over his body by police in Belarus for attending a rally in August 2020 that challenged the results of an election keeping authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko in power.
Krasulin said security forces threatened to sodomize him with a truncheon for joining the protest. After he complained to authorities about the police actions, they opened a criminal case against him rather than the security forces and he decided to flee to neighboring Lithuania.
Until this week, he and other Lukashenko opponents had thought they were safe from the sweeping government crackdown by moving to nearby European Union countries.
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Who Is Roman Protasevich s Girlfriend Sofia Sapega? All About The 23-year-old Student
Sofia Sapega, a Russian citizen who is the girlfriend of detained activist Roman Protasevich, was also detained in Minsk after a bomb scare on Ryanair flight.
IMAGE: AP/TWITTER
Concerns are rising for Sofia Sapega, a Russian citizen who is the girlfriend of detained Belarus activist Roman Protasevich. The 23-year-old was also detained in Minsk along with Protasevich after a bomb scare on a Ryanair flight that was originally bound from Athens in Greece to Vilnius in Lithuania. Sapega recently appeared in a “confession” video in which she said that she was an editor of a Telegram messaging application channel that had promoted the personal data of Belarusian law enforcement personnel, which is a crime in the country.
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