Uladzimir Labkovich: Martin Uggla denied entry to Belarus for protests against Hockey World Championship

The Belarusian regime is going to welcome only “proper” human rights activists, politicians and journalists.

Such an opinion has been expressed by Uladzimir Labkovich, a member of Viasna human rights centre, as he commented to charter97.org on the detention of a well-known Swedish human rights activist Martin Uggla in Minsk airport.

“The ban for entry to Belarus for Martin is connected to his active position as a citizen, as he is a prominent human rights activist, and his organisation, Östgruppen, deals with problems of Belarus. In cooperation with his teammates he staged a number of rallies in Sweden, and attracted attention to the fact that the Ice Hockey Wolrd Championship is held in the country where political prisoners exist, and amid gross violations of human rights. It is even more relevant now in view of illegal preventive arrests carried out by the Belarusian regime ahead of the championship,” he noted.

According to the legal expert, “such incidents mean that the so-called openness of Belarus for the period of the World Championship in no way covers human rights activists, public leaders and politicians, and is absolutely artificial.”

“On the contrary, we state that ahead of the World Championship the human rights situation in our country has deteriorated considerably. And the vivid example of that is arbitrary detentions, which have mass and total nature all over the country. Undoubtedly, the people who could not get visas for entering Belarus before, will have obstacles for the period of the championship as well, like Martin Uggla,” Uladzimir Labkovich stressed.

We remind that the head of Sweden-based human rights organisation Östgruppen Martin Uggla, who planned to visit Belarus, was detained in the transit area at Minsk National Airport. The human rights activist was proposed to live in the airport for a week expecting deportation.