Poland offers refuge to Belarusian Olympian seeking asylum

Belarusian Olympian Kristina Tsimanoskaya is expected to seek refuge in Poland after refusing to return to her homeland due to fears for her safety at the hands of her authoritarian regime.

Foreign Minister Simon Coveney called Ms Tsimanoskaya’s plight «disturbing» and said it was «not what we want to see during the Olympics».

«She asked for a humanitarian visa because she does not want to return to her country and it is clear that she is afraid to return to Belarus,» he said.

Speaking on RTÉ News Monday night, Mr Coveney said «it says a lot about Lukashenko’s regime in Belarus where athletes are nervous even to go home.»

The runner refused to board a plane from Tokyo on Sunday and said she was forced to leave Japan by Belarusian sports officials, who were highly critical of their mismanagement of the country’s Olympic team in a video posted online.

Ms. Tsimanoskaya, 24, entered the Polish embassy in Tokyo early on Monday and Warsaw said she was offered a humanitarian visa amid a brutal crackdown in neighboring Belarus for critics of veteran ruler Alexander Lukashenko and his allies.

I got a humanitarian visa. Poland will do whatever is necessary to help it continue its sporting career. «Poland has always stood in solidarity,» Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Marcin Przydać said on social media.

Tsimanoskaya is expected to travel to Warsaw this week and meet there with her husband, Arseny Zhdanievich, who fled Belarus with the uproar and was in neighboring Ukraine on Monday.

The 200m specialist, who was due to race in Tokyo on Monday, said Belarusian sports officials had told her to urgently pack her bags and prepare to be put on a plane after she complained that she and other athletes were incapacitated by administrators. Handling of Olympic team preparations.

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Lukashenko’s regime warmed to signs of opposition from Olympic athletes, and he and his son Victor – the head of the Belarus Olympic Committee – were banned from attending the Tokyo Games.

Ms Tsimanskaya said she was told by officials that “this is no longer up to par [Belarusian] Athletics Federation or the Ministry of Sports, but at a higher level. They should kick me out of the Olympics, send me home, because I’m interfering with the team’s performance.»

In response to a question from the Belarus sports Tribunal website why she refused to return home, she said: «Because I am afraid that they will put me in prison in Belarus. I am not afraid of expulsion or expulsion from the national team. I am worried for my safety. I think it is dangerous for me At the moment in Belarus. ”

The Belarusian Olympic Committee insisted it withdrew the runner from the Games due to concerns about her «emotional and psychological state» – allegations she rejected as nonsense.

protests

The fraudulent presidential elections last August sparked massive protests against Lukashenko, and in the bloody police response several people were killed, hundreds were injured and 35,000 people were arrested. Rights groups say more than 600 political prisoners remain in Belarusian prisons, and many prominent opposition figures are behind bars or have escaped abroad.

While Belarusian opposition figures expressed support and urged the IOC to protect Ms. Tsimanoskaya, pro-regime figures in her homeland denounced her behaviour.

Belarusian parliamentarian and former Olympic boat rider Alexander Masikov said it appeared that Ms. Tsimanoskaya “went to the Olympics not to compete but for her own plan . . . and it was only necessary to find an excuse to turn her desires into reality.”

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The incident at Tokyo airport prompted defections from communist-era Soviet bloc athletes and came two months after Lukashenko’s regime forced a Ryanair plane to land in Minsk so an opposition activist could be arrested on board.

“Thanks to the quick action of the Japanese and Polish authorities, Tsimanouskaya was able to evade the attempts of the Lukashenko regime to discredit and insult this athlete in Tokyo 2020 to express her views,” US Ambassador to Belarus Julie Fischer said on Twitter.

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