Visa Ban of Belarusian Activists rescinded

The Vilnius Administrative court on 25 February has rescinded a decision by the Lithuanian government’s Migration Department to ban Nicholas Ulasevich, a Belarusian citizen and the coordinator of the “The Astrawiec Nuclear Power station is a crime” campaign.

Mr Ulasevich and his travelling companion Tatyana Novikova, another anti nuclear campaigner, were placed on a Schengen black list for three months in September 2012 during the referendum campaign in Lithuania on the planned construction of an atomic power station there. The reason given for the ban was that Ulasevich and Novikova were “a threat to public order, international relations and national security”

The court has rehabilitated Mr Ulasevich and Ms Novikova.

The Civil Society Forum meeting in Stockholm last November protested against the travel ban in a resolution which said: “we do not see any basis for such action against environmental activists” and appealed for the order to be rescinded.

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