Belarusians in exile regularly face various kinds of restrictions and prohibitions: from visas and passports to cars and legal status. And this list of questions is growing.
Anatol Liabedzka, Adviser on Parliamentary Cooperation and Constitutional Reform, and Aleksandra Mamayeva, representative of the People’s Embassies of Belarus, spoke about the document developed by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.
“The handbook describes specific steps, the implementation of which will help Belarusians in emigration,” says Aleksandra Mamayeva.
According to her, these recommendations, which should become such a handbook for all national parliaments of the countries that are members of the Council of Europe, contain very practical recommendations on how to solve the problems of Belarusians. For example, to increase mobility, issue more visas, simplify visa regimes. In legalization, to issue passports of a foreigner, to recognize the passport of the New Belarus, to recognize expired passports.
“With the handbook from the Council of Europe, you can contact the national parliaments of, for example, Poland, Lithuania and Latvia,” says Anatol Liabedzka.
He noted that this can be done by people’s embassies, representatives of Belarusian and human rights organizations of a particular country. “And to say, look, the international organization has adopted such recommendations, but in practice it is completely different in Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland. This means that it is necessary to bring national legislation into line with these recommendations. And this is what we can practically do now,” says Liabedzka.
According to the politician, this is an attempt to solve problems at the legal legislative level systematically.
