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Human rights defender in Vitsyebsk may be deported to Russia if he does not report his income sources

The Kastrychniski district citizenship and migration office in Vitsyebsk has ordered human rights defender Pyotr Ivanow to report his sources of income and threatens with deportation to Russia for disobeying the order.

Born in Belarus, Mr. Ivanow worked in Russia for some time and obtained Russian citizenship, according to a human rights organization called Vyasna (Spring). He is a retired military officer who lives on his pension.

According to Mr. Ivanow, he came to the attention of law-enforcement agencies after being arrested in 2012 for distributing flyers in support of arrested local opposition activist Syarhey Kavalenka and was sentenced to a fine. A year later, a district judge in Vitsyebsk imposed a fine on him allegedly disobeying police orders and giving a knowingly false report. The charge stemmed from his complaint that police officers had violated traffic rules while apprehending opposition activists Alyaksey Kishchuk and Stanislaw Lawrenaw.

“For half a year now I’ve been threatened with deportation every time I speak out against something,” he said. “My residence permit expires in October 2014, and the police are now looking for reasons not to prolong it and maybe even to deport me ahead of time. However, I can’t imagine how this would happen, considering that we have an open border with Russia. My wife and children live in Vitsyebsk, we have an apartment here. So will I be brought to a place near Smolensk and abandoned somewhere in a forest?”

Mr. Ivanow said that he continued his civil society activities despite the threat of deportation. In particular, he provides legal advice to dissident medical doctor Ihar Pasnow, who was placed in compulsory psychiatric care in August 2013, and to Leanid Zdrestaw, a 60-year-old resident of the Vitsyebsk district who lives in an apartment without central heating. //BelaPAN