June 15, Pozirk. Belarusian and Armenian human rights advocates are working to secure the release of Belarusian civil society activist Viktar Klimus who has been detained at Yerevan’s airport, after Armenian border guards found him on an international wanted list.
The man arrived in Armenia from Poland “on a working visit,” the Viasna Human Rights Center reported on June 15.
Klimus is waiting for a decision on his detention or release, hopefully he will not spend in detention more than 72 hours, Artur Sakunts, of Armenia’s Helsinki Civil Assembly, told Pozirk. The assembly has designated a lawyer to assist Klimus.
The leader of Hruntoŭnia, a now-defunct pro-Belarusian cultural center in Brest, Viktar Klimus, fled Belarus in early 2021 following a police search of his home. Klimus said that he was wanted in connection with the so-called round dance protest, a peaceful September 13, 2020 protest in Brest where people danced and sang at a crossroads. Authorities in Belarus sentenced more than a hundred people to prison over that dance.
According to Leanid Marozaŭ, an aide to Belarusian opposition leader Śviatłana Cichanoŭskaja who is also involved in the effort to secure the release of Klimus, Armenia had previously detained at least seven Belarusian opposition activists because of shared database systems with Belarus and Russia.
The most recent detention of a Belarusian opposition in Armenia was reported on May 3. The activist was released the same day but had to spend nearly a month in Armenia waiting for permits to leave the country for Georgia.
In 2024, Armenia rejected several requests to extradite Belarusians wanted for political reasons, despite Andrej Švied, then Belarusian prosecutor general, raising the issue during a meeting with his Armenian counterpart, Anna Vardapetyan, in Yerevan.
Earlier this year, Alen Simonyan, the Armenian parliamentary speaker, said that no one would be detained or deported to any country for political reasons.
Armenia has been pursuing closer ties with the European Union under Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, who came to power in 2018 following mass protests against the country’s former leadership.
