“Our House” prepared monitoring about the situation of persecution of Belarusian human rights defenders, anti-nuclear activists, journalists, anti-corruption activists, campaigns of discrediting and false accusations of cooperation with Belarusian and Russian special services without presenting any evidence of cooperation, as well as when close cooperation of Lithuanian state bodies with state bodies of the Belarusian regime led to arrests and new repressions of democratic activists and human rights defenders.

Ales Bialiatski,

Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize-2022

Winner of the Václav Havel Prize-2013

Ales Bialiatski is a Belarusian human rights defender and political prisoner both in the past and at present, chairman of the Human Rights Centre “Viasna”, vice-chairman of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), member of the Union of Belarusian Writers and the Belarusian PEN-center. He was brought to court more than 20 times for his active public and human rights activities. During the 2020 protests, he became a member of the Coordination Council for organising the process of overcoming the political crisis[1].

Lithuania, namely the Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Lithuanian Ministry of Justice, provided the regime of Alexander Lukashenko with sensitive information about the activities of human rights defender Ales Bialiatski, which allowed to convict the human rights defender for 4.5 years.[2].

On August 4, 2011 Ales Bialiatski was detained, then arrested and placed in a detention centre. His home and the office of the Human Rights Centre “Viasna” were searched on the orders of the Department of Financial Investigations. The reason for Ales Bialiatski’s detention was alleged tax evasion. The information about the Lithuanian bank accounts of the Human Rights Centre “Viasna”, given in March of that year, was provided to the Belarusian side by the Lithuanian Ministry of Justice within the framework of the agreement in force with Belarus, at the request of the Belarusian side. In addition, it turned out that the husband of the director of the Department of International Law of the Ministry of Justice of Lithuania, Auszra Bernotene, has his own law firm in Belarus, which is quite suspicious, because there has been no independent bar in Belarus since 1999.[3]

The Belarusian tax authorities considered all the sums spent on the activities of the organisation as personal income of the human rights defenders themselves (deputy chairmen of Viasna Valiantsin Stefanovich and Ales Bialiatski) and accused them of tax evasion. Stefanovich was charged with an administrative offence and Bialiatski with a criminal offence.

In April 2012, the Nobel Committee in Oslo registered Ales Bialiatski as an official candidate for the Peace Prize.

On November23, 2011, based on information received from Lithuania, a Belarusian court sentenced human rights defender Ales Bialiatski to 4.5 years’ imprisonment in a reinforced regime colony with confiscation of property (part 2 of article 243 of the Criminal Code of Belarus). A flat in Minsk was confiscated from him.

In an interview with DELFI, Ales Michalevic, a candidate for the 2020 presidential election, political prisoner, and now a political refugee and lawyer, claimed that the Belarusian security services feel comfortable in Vilnius [4].

 Mikalai Ulasevich and Tatsiana Novikava,

anti-nuclear activists recognised

as a threat to Lithuania’s national security with a 5-year ban on entry to Lithuania[5]

 On September 26, 2012, anti-nuclear activist from Astravets district Mikalai Ulasevich and Tatsiana Novikava were on their way to an international scientific conference on nuclear safety at the Lithuanian Seimas meeting. However, they learned from Lithuanian border guards at the border crossing that they were recognised in Lithuania as a threat to Lithuania’s national security. They were not allowed into Lithuania on the instructions of the Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs[6]. In addition, the Lithuanian Foreign Ministry stated that Novikova posed a threat to public order, internal security, public health or to the international relations of an EU country [7][8].

Tatsiana Novikava is a well-known coordinator of the Belarusian Anti-Atomic Movement and a member of the public association “Ekodom”. The activist is seriously ill with cancer, which she attributes to the catastrophe at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.

Mikalai Ulasevich – coordinator of the civil campaign “Construction of the Astravets Nuclear Power Plant is a Crime”, resident of Astravets district, activist of the International Centre for Civic Initiatives “Our House” and one of the active participants of the civil campaign “STOP Nuclear Power Plant” “Our House”.

Before travelling to Lithuania, on July 18, 2012, Tatsiana Novikava was arrested in Belarus and subjected to administrative detention for 5 days, where she was tortured and ill-treated. Tatsiana Novikava tried to hand over to the Russian embassy in Minsk an appeal against the signing of the contract for the construction of Astravets nuclear power plant in Belarus by Russia. The signing of the general contract was scheduled within the framework of the visit of Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev to Minsk and his meeting with Aliaksandr Lukashenka. Tatsiana Novikava is chronically ill, her thyroid gland has been removed, and she cannot live without constantly taking special medication.

Her administrative arrest was then included in the monitoring of the Human Rights Centre “Viasna” as politically motivated [9].

Arvydas Anušauskas, then chairman of the parliamentary Committee on National Security and Defence, conservative Arvydas Anušauskas, told Lithuanian media “15min” about the recognition of Tatsiana Novikava and Mikalai Ulasevich as a threat to Lithuania’s national security: “I can say from practice that both Russian and Belarusian security services are active in those organisations that initially declare their discontent with the plans to build nuclear power plants in those regions“, i.e. actively hinted at co-operation of anti-nuclear activists with Russian and Belarusian special services.

According to Tatsiana Novikava, she believes that she has become a threat to national security in Lithuania because she is an opponent of nuclear energy. The activist stated: “My idealistic notion that Lithuania is a country where democracy exists, where you can come and openly declare your position, where people are not persecuted for their opinion, has changed a little bit“.

On February 25, 2013, the Vilnius District Administrative Court overturned the decision of the Lithuanian Migration Department to recognise Mikalai Ulasevich as a threat to Lithuania’s national security and allowed him to enter Lithuania [10].

On March 18, 2013, the Vilnius District Administrative Court overturned the decision of the Lithuanian Migration Department to recognise Tatsiana Novikava as a threat to Lithuania’s national security and allowed her to enter Lithuania.

The Lithuanian Foreign Ministry has not produced any evidence that Mikalai Ulasevich and Tatsiana Novikava pose any threat to Lithuania or the EU countries [11][12].

The head of the Lithuanian Christian Party Vidmantas Zemialis said after the trials of Mikalai Ulasevich and Tatsiana Novikava that “the Lithuanian authorities comprehensively support the regime of dictator Lukashenko, and the evidence of this has become too much”[13].

Yaraslau Ramanchuk,

economist, presidential candidate 2010, member of the United Civil Party of Belarus,

President of the Mises Research Centre in Belarus, Executive Director of the Analytical Centre “Strategy”.

Yaraslau Ramanchuk is the author of books on economics and reforms in the post-Soviet countries, the author of over 6500 publications on economic topics in various print and electronic publications in Belarus, Russia, Ukraine, the USA, Poland and other countries. He is the author of 13 books on economics, reforms, transit from the state plan to the free market.

He was a candidate for President of Belarus in the 2010 elections, according to official records, he came in third place.

In 2021 he was forced to leave Belarus and since then he has been permanently residing and working in Ukraine.

Honoured with awards: Grand Prix of the Sir Anthony Fisher International Prize for the book “Belarus: The Road to the Future” (2006) and for the book “In Search of an Economic Miracle. Lessons for Belarus” (2009).

Winner of the Templeton Awards in 2006 and 2007.

Winner of the “Best Freedom Lawyer in Ukraine in 2021” award from the Ayn Rand Centre in Ukraine.

Listed as a threat to Lithuania’s national security without explanation.

In October 2019, the Lithuanian Department of National Security placed Yaraslau Ramanchuk on the list of persons posing a “threat to national security” with an indefinite ban on entry to Schengen countries[14].

According to Yaraslau Ramanchuk’s informal information, the Lithuanian Department of National Security accused Yaraslau Ramanchuk of allegedly being linked to the FSB, i.e. Russian special services. No evidence of Yaraslau Ramanchuk’s alleged co-operation with Russian intelligence services was provided.

Yaraslau himself connects his appearance on the list of threats to the national security of Lithuania with the fact that he started to investigate the topic of Belarus-Lithuania smuggling business, including the Lithuanian part of this criminal “cigarette” business.

According to the economist’s investigations, the grey export of cigarettes from Belarus to the European Union through Lithuania amounts to 15-17 billion cigarettes annually, which means that on the Lithuanian side, some Lithuanian law enforcement agencies get about $80,000 from one truckload of smuggled cigarettes[15].

In Lithuania, despite the enormous scale of Belarusian smuggling from the regime of Alexander Lukashenko, there have never been any investigations into where these tens of billions of cigarettes disappear every year. The links describe a little bit the scheme of how Belarusian smuggled cigarettes get to Lithuania, and hence further to the European Union.[16][17]

Ramanchuk emphasises: for over 25 years he has regularly obtained annual and multi-annual Schengen visas and visas of other European states prior to their accession to the Schengen Agreement, including at the Lithuanian Embassy in Minsk. Never violated the regime of stay in the Schengen countries, never received warnings about violation of the legislation of the EU countries. Never conducted commercial activities in the territory of the EU countries, including Lithuania.

Until now, 5 years later, no one has ever familiarised him with the decision on the exact reason why he is included in the list of threats to Lithuania’s national security.

 Sviatlana Haluza, journalist,

anti-corruption investigator

Belarusian journalist Sviatlana Haluza worked at Sviatlana Tihanouskaya’s affiliated foundation “Bysol” as a personal assistant to Andrei Strizhak. She was verified as trustworthy and brought to Lithuania in September 2020 by Vytis Jurkonis, head of the Lithuanian branch of Freedom House [18]. “Bysol” is a close partner of Freedom House, they work closely together, their executives are personal friends. Freedom House is the only relevant organisation for the Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs that issues letters of guarantee for humanitarian visas for Belarusians facing repression, there is close co-operation between Freedom House and the Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

A young woman, confronted with corruption in the foundation, as well as unmotivated refusals to victims of repression and other abuses, On December 19, 2020, she recorded a 30-second video in which she said she was leaving the “Bysol” Foundation because she did not want to be involved in corruption.

“Bysol” was threatened and a huge campaign of harassment was launched, involving both Sviatlana Tihanovska’s team and Freedom House.

In March 2022, (by then Sviatlana Haluza had already been an accredited journalist with the Lithuanian Foreign Ministry for 8 months) Freedom House somehow found out about Sviatlana’s accreditation and wrote a letter to the Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where it lied about Sviatlana, providing false facts about her biography and accusing her of working for Belarusian propaganda, co-operating with the KGB and passing information to the KGB, which allegedly led to the arrest of media manager Andrei Aleksandrov, human rights defender Leonid Sudalenko and political activist Vasiliy Polyakov.

The Lithuanian Foreign Ministry in April 2022, together with the Lithuanian National Security Department, on the basis of a letter from Freedom House and without any evidence, declared Sviatlana a threat to Lithuania’s national security, deprived her of her journalistic accreditation and residence permit in Lithuania.

Sviatlana Haluza is sick with 4th degree lung cancer. Deportation to Belarus for Sviatlana meant a long prison term and an agonising death in a Belarusian prison without medical drugs, because all these years Sviatlana had been actively working as a journalist, helping “Our House” to uncover facts of criminal offences of Lukashenka’s regime in Belarus, which is an obvious reason for criminal prosecution in Belarus.

During the trial it turned out that the decision of the Foreign Ministry was based on speculation and gossip in one letter sent by Freedom House to the Lithuanian Foreign Ministry, where Freedom House tried to take revenge on a young Belarusian journalist for that 30-second video against their partner “Bysol” and tried to get her deported to Belarus to prison.

Later, the following structures publicly declared corruption in Svetlana Tikhanovskaya’s affiliated foundation “Bysol”:

1. The Kastus Kalinowski Regiment issued an official video appeal accusing the “Bysol” Foundation of corruption and misuse of funds raised for Kalinowski’s regiment.
2. Belarus’ strike committees, including the Belkaliya strike committee. Issued an official statement about corruption in the Bysol Foundation.
3. NAU representative Sviatlana Hilko, former investigator of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, developer of the reform of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for Sviatlana Tihanouskaya, who collected quite extensive facts on the facts of corruption in the “Bysol” fund.
4. The next assistant of Andrei Strizhak after Sviatlana Haluza Alexandra Zvereva, the former girlfriend of the son of the son of the favourite of the presidential race 2020 and political prisoner Viktor Babariko, also left “Bysol”, having publicly announced about corruption and financial fraud in “Bysol”.

 

And much more.

[1] https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%91%D0%B5%D0%BB%D1%8F%D1%86%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%B9,_%D0%90%D0%BB%D0%B5%D1%81%D1%8C_%D0%92%D0%B8%D0%BA%D1%82%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1%87

[2] https://www.bbc.com/russian/international/2011/08/110806_belarus_belyatsky_arrest

[3] https://www.delfi.lt/ru/news/politics/ministry-v-obmane-litvy-pri-vydache-dannyh-o-belyackom-vinovata-belarus-50094210

[4] https://www.delfi.lt/ru/news/politics/radina-uchrezhdeniya-litvy-nanesli-udar-po-belorusskim-politzaklyuchennym-48394909

[5] https://euroradio.fm/ru/report/litva-zapretila-vezd-belorusskim-antiyadernym-aktivistam-119116

[6] https://www.15min.lt/ru/article/vesti/zaslon-dlja-inakomysljashchih-litva-ne-vpuskaet-protivnikov-atomnoj-energetiki-504-261650?utm_medium=copied

[7] https://www.delfi.lt/ru/news/live/belorusy-kotoryh-ne-vpustili-v-litvu-pozhalovalis-v-sud-59824611

[8] https://www.delfi.lt/ru/news/politics/belorusskih-aktivistov-ne-vpustili-na-konferenciyu-v-litvu-59605479

[9] https://spring96.org/files/reviews/ru/2012_review_ru.pdf

[10] https://www.delfi.lt/ru/news/live/belorus-obzhalovavshiy-reshenie-departamenta-migracii-litvy-vyigral-delo-v-sude-60767875

[11] https://www.15min.lt/ru/article/vesti/grazhdanka-belorussii-novikova-vyigrala-v-sude-delo-protiv-departamenta-migratsii-litvy-504-317215

[12] https://moyby.com/news/97078/

[13] https://charter97.org/ru/news/2012/9/27/59124/

[14] https://www.delfi.lt/ru/abroad/belorussia/v-posolstve-litvy-ekonomist-romanchuk-uznal-o-zaprete-na-vezd-v-shengenskuyu-zonu-83271561

[15] https://www.youtube.com/live/Y-EC6v2AYqg?t=503s

[16] https://www.lrt.lt/naujienos/verslas/4/1409655/valstybine-kontrabanda-del-neveikiancio-rentgeno-lietuva-tapo-pajamu-saltiniu-baltarusijos-rezimui

[17] https://udf.name/news/main_news/64172-lukashenko-vsem-dast-prikurit.html

[18] https://nash-dom.info/113653