How did blacklisted Mihalchanka enter Lithuania?
Euroradio has received an official comment from the Lithuanian Foreign Office.
ONT journalist Alyaksei Mihalchanka has attended the OSCE Ministerial Council. Interestingly, the meeting is taking place in Vilnius and Mihalchanka is on the black list of Belarusian officials forbidden to enter the European Union!
How could a blacklisted journalist enter the EU? The Lithuanian Embassy to Minsk has not commented on it. The organizers of the Ministerial Council have not commented on it either. A representative of the Lithuanian Foreign Office has agreed to give an unofficial comment. He says that the visa sanctions are not applied to international events of this level.
Mihalchanka said the same to the information agency “Interfax-West”. According to him, “the visa sanctions are not applied to OSCE meetings. There are good international law specialists in the Lithuanian Foreign Office and they know about it”.
The journalist explained that he had applied to the Lithuanian Embassy to Minsk in advance. “Lithuania did not create any obstacles and I received a national visa”, - said Mihalchanka. He covered the OSCE Ministerial Council in this programme “As is”. Mihalchanka was wearing an accreditation badge.
Euroradio has just received an official comment from the Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs:
“The visa is valid only on the Lithuanian territory and only during the international event. The visa was given because Belarus is a member of the OSCE and the aim of the trip was to cover the OSCE Ministerial Council. According to the decision of the Council of the EU, an OSCE member-state cannot apply visa sanctions on blacklisted people if it hosts an OSCE event”.
