Authorities put BAJ deputy chairman Aleh Aheyeu on interstate wanted list

The search data­base does not indi­cate which legal arti­cle Belaru­sian and Russ­ian author­i­ties are using to pros­e­cute Aleh Aheyeu, the deputy chair­man of the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists (BAJ). Ear­li­er, anoth­er BAJ deputy chair­man, Barys Haret­s­ki, was also added to a want­ed list.

BAJ deputy chair­man Aleh Ageyeu. Pho­to: BAJ

In a com­ment to BAJ’s mon­i­tor­ing ser­vice, Aleh Aheyeu sug­gest­ed that Belaru­sian author­i­ties like­ly request­ed Inter­pol (the Inter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Police Orga­ni­za­tion) to put him on a want­ed list:

“Each coun­try has the author­i­ty to ini­ti­ate crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion for crimes com­mit­ted with­in its ter­ri­to­ry. If a sus­pect leaves the coun­try and law enforce­ment knows their new loca­tion, they can either send a spe­cif­ic request to the coun­try where the per­son is believed to be or put them on an inter­na­tion­al want­ed list.

There are dif­fer­ent pro­ce­dures for this, most com­mon­ly through Inter­pol. Any coun­try that is part of Inter­pol can con­duct this crime detec­tion with­in its bor­ders and fol­low its nation­al pro­ce­dures. So, if law enforce­ment agen­cies have placed a per­son on an inter­na­tion­al want­ed list, each Inter­pol mem­ber coun­try may choose to pro­ceed with their detec­tion based on its own nation­al pro­ce­dures.”

Rus­sia includes a large num­ber of Belaru­sians in its want­ed list specif­i­cal­ly because they have been declared inter­na­tion­al­ly want­ed by Belaru­sian author­i­ties.

Accord­ing to the legal expert, the pres­ence of Aheyeu’s per­son­al data in the Russ­ian want­ed data­base indi­cates that a crim­i­nal case has been opened against him in Belarus.

“How­ev­er, I have not per­son­al­ly received any noti­fi­ca­tions regard­ing this. It’s unlike­ly that I have been list­ed as a miss­ing person—that’s cer­tain­ly not my case,” Aheyeu said with irony.

“I’m not the first Belaru­sian on that list. Two years ago, the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists was des­ig­nat­ed an extrem­ist orga­ni­za­tion. The author­i­ties’ deci­sion includ­ed the names of those whom the head of Belarus’s KGB con­sid­ered mem­bers of this orga­ni­za­tion. This alone is enough to jus­ti­fy open­ing a crim­i­nal case against the deputy chair­man of the asso­ci­a­tion, and that’s like­ly what hap­pened. How­ev­er, they may have oth­er ‘con­cerns’ about me—I wouldn’t rule that out,” Aheyeu added.

“In Belarus today, many actions can be crim­i­nal­ized and con­sid­ered offens­es, even though they do not align with any inter­na­tion­al stan­dards. I have cer­tain­ly com­mit­ted no crimes—I am a lawyer and know my rights. But in Belarus today, the peace­ful exer­cise of rights is large­ly pro­hib­it­ed. As a result, they are attempt­ing to crim­i­nal­ly pros­e­cute me for non­vi­o­lent actions, which vio­lates inter­na­tion­al law.

That is why most Inter­pol mem­ber coun­tries do not enforce or respond to Belarus’s polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed pros­e­cu­tions. Again, I’m not the first per­son on this list—there are already thou­sands of Belaru­sians whom the author­i­ties have put on it.”

The edi­tor-in-chief of Reform.news and Free Media Award lau­re­ate Fio­dar Pauluchen­ka has also been placed on a want­ed list.