“Of course, the purpose of this law is an attempt to intimidate, once again put pressure on, create problems for all those who opposed Lukashenka in 2020 and continue to fight him. He cannot reach those who have left the country. But he takes revenge in a vile way – through documents, problems with passports. The fact that this law will be does not change the situation. Belarusians have faced problems before. Those who wanted to renew their passports or get some Belarusian documents by applying to the embassies, Lukashenka's embassies refused to do so. Now they [the authorities] just want to complicate this procedure even more. They understand that those who have left cannot get documents quickly – after the start of the war, this became even more difficult. And this deprivation of citizenship will make life very difficult for tens of thousands of Belarusians, [limiting] the ability to work normally from Warsaw, Vilnius, and so on.
In general, neither the procedure nor how it will be implemented is clear. A fairly free interpretation means that any person can be called an extremist: a mother of many children who was left without a job, and her husband was imprisoned, and a journalist or blogger who was forced to leave because their organization was closed in Belarus, and workers' trade unions, and human rights defenders – all fall under these articles. That is, a free interpretation allows simply punishing, frightening, blackmailing Belarusians by taking away their passports. If you won't be loyal, you'll jerk, you'll speak in the press – we'll take citizenship from you and your family. I think this is from the same opera as the death penalty, which is now proposed to be introduced against officials.
Of course, this can be demoralizing. But this is a task for the democratic forces here – to quickly find an alternative solution, to introduce some kind of alternative passports, documents, something that can at least temporarily solve the problems of those who have left. We are already working on this, we are talking with the UN Special Rapporteurs and the European Commission on the creation of such documents. There are options for people to receive temporary international protection, temporary "foreigner's passports" in Lithuania and Poland. But there must be other mechanisms as well.
Of course, this is contrary to international law and practice. This is unprecedented in Europe and is comparable, perhaps, only to what happened in Burma (Myanmar), when thousands of people were deported to Bangladesh. But at the level of Europe, there was no such thing as deprivation of citizenship. In fact, people are being expelled from the country (Maria Kolesnikova was forcibly taken out) and deprived of citizenship. It's all part of the same repressive practice. In the USSR they were sent to the Gulag, now they are sent into exile so that they could not return and influence the situation in the country. Of course, we will raise the issue in the Human Rights Council, we are already talking about it at every meeting and at the UN General Assembly. We need a clear response here. If you close your eyes, then other authoritarian countries will start to do the same. When forced deprivation of citizenship becomes the norm, what world will we find ourselves in?
Lukashenka is no longer afraid for his reputation and image. He non-stop every minute gushing pearls and madness. In normal countries, politicians will be asked for their statements, while Lukashenka is not accountable to anyone. He is allowed to talk about the nuclear bomb, the attack on Ukraine, because no one will ask him. He understands that this is already the last battle for him, the next route, most likely, to The Hague or, if he has time, will hide where he will be received. He does not care about the international reaction, he himself left the legal field in 2020. There were no more trials. Only reprisals. Now he also takes Belarus out of the international legal field. For example, the fact that Belarusians cannot file complaints. He took Belarus out of the international human rights protocol, Belarusians cannot file complaints to international human rights institutions. Belarus is leaving the legal field of the world. This is the hopelessness into which he drove himself.