Belarus plans to revoke citizenship of oppositionists who have gone abroad

Alyaksandr Lukashenka's regime is developing a legislative act providing for the deprivation of citizenship of political opponents who have emigrated, reports Voice of America.

Photo: IStock

This was stated on September 6 by the Minister of Internal Affairs of Belarus Ivan Kubrakov.

Tens of thousands of Belarusians have fled the country fearing prosecution amid a large-scale crackdown that crushed anti-government protests that erupted in the summer of 2020.
Kubrakov presented a mechanism that would allow depriving the citizenship of persons living abroad.

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“We proposed to deprive the citizenship of… people who continue their illegal activities while already outside the Republic of Belarus,” Kubrakov said.

He noted that the punishment would be imposed by a decision in absentia of the Belarusian court, the convicted person would be banned from entering Belarus for 30 years.

Such a decision by the Belarusian authorities, if adopted, will run counter to the long-term policy of the UN to combat the phenomenon of statelessness, reports Mirror. It is closely connected with various politically unstable regions or discrimination of various categories of people in individual countries, and therefore, if such a procedure appears, Belarus will be on a par with such states as Myanmar, Syria, Côte d'Ivoire or Iraq.

The United Nations, in a number of its documents, explicitly states that people should not be deprived of citizenship if they do not have a second one, and since 2014 it has been conducting a Global Campaign to End Statelessness, which should end in 2024. The actions of the Belarusian authorities will obviously not facilitate this process. The exact number of stateless persons worldwide is unknown due to difficulties in registering them. The United Nations Refugee Agency estimates that there are more than 10 million refugees on the planet.

Due to the lack of such a practice, it is still difficult to say what will happen to the Belarusian passports of people who are abroad. The Belarusian authorities (for example, employees of the border committee at the time of crossing the border or employees of diplomatic missions abroad - in embassies and consulates) can invalidate the document or withdraw it. It turns out that in order to cancel a passport, a Belarusian needs to come to the consul himself. If this is not done, then the passport is likely to be considered valid by the authorities of the host country and other countries until it expires. But it will no longer be possible to obtain such a new document - neither at the consulate abroad, nor in Belarus (especially if a ban on entry for 30 years is really introduced for Belarusians deprived of citizenship).

From the moment of deprivation of citizenship (if you have the only one), you become stateless - that is, a person without citizenship. There is simply nowhere to deport you, because even if the host country asks Belarus for information about you, the representative office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will answer that you are not a citizen of the country, therefore, it has no reason to take you back.

An important factor that will determine the future life of a stateless person is the host country.

Most EU states (with the exception of Poland, Estonia, Malta and Cyprus) have signed and ratified two major international instruments regulating the rights of stateless people: the 1954 UN Convention on the Status of Stateless Persons and the 1961 UN Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness. According to these documents, the host country will be obliged to issue a temporary identity card to a stateless person and ensure a minimum set of rights: education, work, housing, administrative assistance, travel documents. Also, if a child is born to a stateless person in the territory of a state that has signed both conventions, then this country will be obliged to give him its citizenship.

Belarusian authorities have also designated a number of opposition politicians as terrorists, including exiled opposition leader Svyatlana Tikhanovskaya.

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Political and economic think tanks outside of Belarus estimate that between 100000 and 300000 people have left Belarus for political reasons since 2020.

According to human rights activists, more than 1300 political prisoners are being held in Belarus.

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