Oppositionist from Salihorsk searched for two hours at border

At crossing the Poland-Belarus border Ivan Shyla was detained for two and a half hours for a customs inspection.

This took place at night on 13 June. As the train from Terespol arrived, border guards took away the young man’s passport. For one and a half hours the Salihorsk resident remained uncertain of what was going on, after which he was directed to a full customs inspection, the human rights center Viasna reports.

“They made me take off my T-shirt, shoes even socks. After the inspection they started asking of the presence of materials on my laptop, which contradict the state ideology and national policy. Apparently they found none in the socks. My arguments on the illegal character of such requests ended with the threat of confiscating the laptop, - Ivan Shyla says. – The arguments of the confidentiality of the information stored and the absence of the extremist, pornographic materials or ones that promote ethnic hatred, did not convince them much. Although, in an hour I got released”.

Such attention to him the Young Front activist considers the echo of the IIHF world championship. Like many other civic and political activists, the authorities were then looking for Ivan Shyla too in order to preventively arrest him.