FOJO Representative Banned from Belarus due to Russian «Black List»

On Jan­u­ary 25 after­noon Olga Vallee was detained by the bor­der guards at Min­sk air­port. She was told that she could not enter Belarus, since she is on the list of per­sons, who are banned from enter­ing the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion.

Belarus and Rus­sia have recent­ly acquired a com­mon «black list». Once Olga appeared on the Russ­ian list, she is also banned from our coun­try. She had to return to Riga.

 — We have addressed the Bor­der Ser­vice of the air­port and the hot­line of the Bor­der Com­mit­tee of Belarus, which con­firmed the infor­ma­tion. Accord­ing to the bor­der guards, Olga Vallee is on the Russ­ian «black list», and this is the rea­son why she was not let in Belarus.  The Bor­der Com­mit­tee staff rec­om­mend­ed to con­tact the author­i­ties of the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion, — said Aleh Aheyeu, deputy chair­per­son of the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists.

FOJO Media Insti­tute has been coop­er­a­tion with jour­nal­ists’ orga­ni­za­tions of Belarus for more than 15 years. It sup­port­ed a range of pro­grams coor­di­nat­ed by BAJ, the Belaru­sian Union of Jour­nal­ists, and the BSU Insti­tute of Jour­nal­ism.

Pre­vi­ous­ly, there have been no inci­dents with FOJO rep­re­sen­ta­tives vis­it­ing Belarus.

On Octo­ber 10, 2018 Olga Vallee received a busi­ness visa for a year, and planned to vis­it Rus­sia in Feb­ru­ary 2019.

This is not the first time that the Belaru­sian author­i­ties deport­ed or banned for­eign nation­als on the grounds of the Russ­ian » black list».

The Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists is indig­nant over the inci­dent. BAJ believes, the opin­ion of the Russ­ian author­i­ties should not affect part­ner pro­grams and con­tacts between orga­ni­za­tions of Belarus, Swe­den and oth­er coun­tries.