People in Belarus and abroad protest against the actions of the official Minsk employed in relation to the famous human rights defender Elena Tonkacheva, who might be deported from Belarus.

Human Rights Center “Viasna” calls upon Belarusans to demonstrate solidarity with the head of the Legal Transformation Center (Lawtrend) and joins the appeal of its colleagues and all people concerned with this situation to send petitions to the Citizenship and Migration Department of the Municipal Department of Internal Affairs of the Minsk City Executive Committee and the Citizenship and Migration Department of the Pieršamajski Regional Office of Internal Affairs of Minsk.

“Obvious inadequacy of the sanctions used by the Belarusan authorities for minor offence” has been noted in Russia as well. Mikhail Fedotov, Chairman of the Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights appealed to the leadership of the Russian Foreign Ministry to provide urgent support to a Russian citizen, who has been permanently residing in Belarus.

“People who know Elena Tonkacheva personally or who received help from her and her organization understand all groundlessness and amorality of such kind of pressure from the authorities,” Ulad Vialichka, the Director General of the International Consortium “EuroBelarus”, marked in the interview with EuroBelarus Information Service. “I think that in such situation a certain solidarisation of people is possible and even required; solidarisation of people, who cannot stand the situation where one of the Belarusan human rights defenders to be treated like that.”

He believes that the actions of authorities “are dictated by the convenient moment, when repression against one of the famous Belarusan human rights defenders is used because of minor offence.” “In relation to thousands and even millions of other citizens such kind of reasons wouldn’t serve as a reason for tough reaction of the authorities. But taking into account the forthcoming presidential election 2015, this is a very handy way to get rid of yet another human rights defendant without waiting until complicated political situations occur, but taking the opportunity and making use of judicial grounds,” Ulad Vialichka said.

The head of the IC “EuroBelarus” assumes that “this way or another certain protest forms against repressive actions of the authorities have to be realized.” “It is hard for me to say now what forms they should take. We all are somewhat puzzled with the hearing that has to take place on Wednesday. Deprivation of residence permit is one thing, but deportation is another. From my point of view, consideration of deportation is nothing but a politically motivated action that has no reason and no grounds. I hope that all people who happened to work with Elena and her organization won’t stand aside and will express their rejection of this situation,” he emphasized.

Let us recall that the consideration of Elena Tonkacheva’s compulsory expulsion is to take place on November 5 at 12 a.m. in the Citizenship and Migration Department of the Pieršamajski Regional Office of Internal Affairs of Minsk.

Earlier Ales Bialiatski, the head of the Human Rights Center “Viasna”, in the interview with the EuroBelarus Information Service noted that Tonkacheva’s persecution might be related to the forthcoming presidential campaign 2015.

“I see no point, prospects, or possible results in the new election campaign. That is why it is hard to say how much will the society be involved in it. If the authorities decide to use the repressive mechanism against human rights defenders and civil society structures, which don’t care about this campaign at all it is stupid. If they will be seriously taking part in it by means of election observation, it means that some actions from the authorities will follow,” Ulad Vialichka underlined.