Commission on émigrés gets 70 reentry requests – prosecutor

May 8, BPN. The commission that filters political emigrants willing to return to Belarus has received over 70 applications, Prosecutor General Andrej Švied has told the “Kontury” show on the ONT television channel.

“We have held one of our first meetings. A number of decisions have been made regarding the people who have applied,” he said yesterday.

“We know for certain that these people are being actively handled abroad. Some of them are being intimidated not to come here,” Švied said. “I am convinced that the time will come when people will return and live here peacefully. The media will have the opportunity to communicate with them and learn firsthand how it all happened.”

This commission was envisaged in January as a response to the mass exodus of opposition activists, journalists and ordinary citizens, which followed protests and crackdowns after the disputed 2020 presidential election.

The number of applicants cited by Švied is well below 1 percent of the estimated number of émigrés.

Švied told Belarusian television earlier this year that “at least three categories of our citizens” would be able to return: those who mistakenly believe that the state has complaints against them; those who committed misdemeanor; and those who committed minor crimes but have publicly repented.

The opposition warned the emigrants that it was too dangerous to go home because of the threat of arrest.