September 26, Pozirk. Armenia’s authorities have released Belarusian activist Leŭ Michiejeŭ, arrested following his deportation from Georgia, rights activist Raman Kiślak told Pozirk.
The activist is in good spirits and grateful to everyone for their support, he said.
Michiejeŭ was arrested in Georgia yesterday and taken to Armenia, where he was detained at the request of the Belarusian authorities, as Minsk entered his name into the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) intergovernmental wanted persons database. However, Yerevan, which has been pursuing closer ties with the European Union, does not extradite individuals persecuted for political reasons.
Michiejeŭ has been waiting for asylum in Georgia since 2021, longer than almost any of his fellow countrymen. While in Georgia, he participated in protest rallies and received threats from the Belarusian Committee for State Security (KGB). The man was detained when he submitted an application to renew his temporary identity card at the migration department in the village of Markopi. He was taken to Tbilisi for questioning.
Michiejeŭ was reportedly offered two options: to be “expelled from Georgia in handcuffs” or to leave voluntarily. He refused to return to Belarus fearing politically-motivated persecution and asked for a little time, at least until his temporary ID expired on October 9, but the Georgian security forces refused.
The activist said he chose to go to Armenia himself. There was no deportation hearing and he was “forced to sign a lot of papers” in Georgian, the meaning of which he did not understand. “It’s hard to argue with them about anything. So let it be Armenia. And the process got rolling,” he said.
Kiślak, who has been trying to obtain international protection for several years himself, told Pozirk that he spent the entire day trying to obtain information about Michiejeŭ’s whereabouts. Georgian authorities held the activist incommunicado, he noted.
Many Belarusians moved to Georgia to escape politically-motivated persecution unleashed by the Alaksandar Łukašenka regime following the 2020 post-election protests. Georgia has not granted asylum to a single Belarusian under the Georgian Dream government of pro-Russian oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili in recent years.
The Georgian migration authorities have intensified their anti-immigration campaign and have been conducting raids to identify undocumented migrants, including door-to-door checks, with Belarusians among those targeted. Local media and diaspora activists have reported cases of foreigners being deported on what they describe as trumped-up grounds.
Belarusian opposition leader Śviatłana Cichanoŭskaja told Pozirk in May that it was impossible to negotiate with Georgian authorities on the recognition of expired Belarusian passports or issue temporary identification documents to foreigners.
