By Paul Vartan Sookiasian
A Belarusian activist who was detained yesterday at her country’s request when crossing overland into Armenia from Georgia has now been released and has applied for political asylum.
Diana Moiseenko is wanted in Belarus on charges related to her alleged participation in protests that swept the country against President Alexander Lukashenko during presidential elections in 2020, widely assessed to have been fraudulent. Mass street demonstrations overtook the country’s capital Minsk, following Lukashenko’s inauguration during an unannounced ceremony.
Moiseenko had been living in Georgia since last year and says she was not aware there was a criminal case against her in Belarus, one of Europe’s most authoritarian countries and home to more than 1,500 political prisoners, including human rights activists, journalists, and opposition politicians.
In a press release yesterday, the office of Svetlana Tikhankovskaya, Belarus’ exiled opposition leader, confirmed it was in contact with Armenia’s Foreign Ministry regarding Moiseenko’s case, and said it had “received assurances (that) the Armenian authorities will not extradite Belarusians subject to political persecution in their homeland.”
In February, Armenia briefly detained another Belarusian citizen, Yaroslav Novikov, after Belarus opened a criminal case against him on charges of evading military service. By March, Armenia had agreed to grant Novikov asylum. Tikhanovskaya’s office has also indicated it was involved in that case.
In recent months, Yerevan’s relations with Minsk have worsened significantly. In June, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan claimed that Belarus had helped Azerbaijan’s prepare for its 2020 war on Artsakh, despite Armenia and Belarus’ common membership in the Collective Treaty Security Organization, a Russian-led defense bloc. Pashinyan then banned all Armenian officials from visiting Belarus.
Read more: Pashinyan orders Armenian officials to refrain from visiting Belarus, as relations nosedive
Last month, Lukashenko mocked Armenia’s accelerating turn West in an interview with Russian state television, saying, “Who needs the Armenians except for us? No one needs them.”
