American and Australian actresses broke away Minsk airport

American actress and singer Stephanie Pan and Australian actress Esther Mugambi managed to fly to Amsterdam via Prague, after 20-hour detention at the Minsk airport. The actresses flew at the expense of Czech airlines. This agreement was achieved between the Belarusian authorities and a Czech avia company.

Stephanie Pan and Esther Mugambi arrived in Minsk on invitation of the Belarusian Free Theatre on October 5. They were to rehearse performances with the Belarusian Free Theatre in the frames of Eurepica project during a week. But the actresses were detained a Minsnk-2 airport after the arrival. Belarusian border guards said to the actresses they were on the list of banned to enter Belarus.

The actresses, who arrived in Minsk from Amsterdam, had never been to Belarus before. Officers of the Minsk airport didn’t tell the actresses a reason for forbidding the country, referring to “secret information of the Ministry of Foreign Affaires of Belarus”.

Belarusian border guards said to Stephanie Pan and Esther Mugambi they could fly back at their own expense. The women had return tickets only for flight Minsk-Prague-Amsterdam on October 12.

The actresses were lodged in the airport in prison facility, the so called detention rooms. Their liberty was restrained, they were locked. To leave the room, for example, to go to toilet, they had to knock and ask to be guarded there. There are eight such rooms in the airport. Citizens of Bangladesh, Azerbaijan, and Iraq lived in the neighbouring rooms.

The both actresses know only English. They had difficulties in speaking with airport officers. Chiefs of the Free Theatre Mikalai Khalezin and Natallya Kalyada returned to Minsk, 30 kilometres from the airport, to buy food and water for the actresses, as cafes and bars were closed at the airport.

Stephanie Pan and Esther Mugambi spent 16 hours at the airport, and then flew to Amsterdam via Prague. According to Free Theatre’s chief Mikalai Khalezin, representatives of the Belarusian authorities came to the airport and agreed with the Czech avia company on deportation of an American and an Australian actresses.

“We regret that acquaintance of two brilliant actresses with Belarus ended with impressions of being kept at the international zone for a day and deportation. Unfortunately, we will have to work over Eurepica project abroad. When we managed to talk with them through window, they said, you had been right, the main challenge for Europe is Belarus. We had an impression it was a bad perestroika movie, when consulate officers can’t speak English, border officers can’t provide meal for the detained, none of the state bodies was able to decide anything. Such situations provoke only one feeling – shame for our country,” Mikalai Khalezin told in an interview to the Charter’97 press center.

Mikalai Khalezin reminds that it is not the first case when foreigners can’t enter Belarus on invitation of the Free Theatre. Last year, eight foreign actors, who were going to take part in joint Belarusian project, the Belarusian embassy in the Netherlands denied them visas. Among them were the heads of DasArts international school of performance, who had been detained in Minsk during play by the Free Theatre in August 2007. It should be reminded that riot militia rushed in and arrested some tens of actors and viewers, including guests of the theatre from the Netherlands and France.