Belarusian athlete Krystsina Tsimanouskaya, threatened with being forcibly repatriated to her country after criticizing sports bodies, obtained a humanitarian visa from Poland on Monday.
This affair, which has shaken the Tokyo Olympics since Sunday, comes after a year of fierce repression of any dispute in Belarus, a former Soviet republic nestled between Russia and the EU and led with an iron fist since 1994 by President Alexander Lukashenko.
Read also: Belarus: chilling testimonies of an ordinary dictatorship
This sprinter says she fears being imprisoned if she returns to her country, which for a year has seen thousands of arrests and forced exiles of opponents, as well as the liquidation of many NGOs and independent media. Krystsina Tsimanouskaya, 24, said on Sunday that she was forced to end her participation in the Olympics by the coach of her team, before being accompanied to the airport by officials of the Belarusian National Olympic Committee to return to her country .
A few days before, she had strongly criticized the Belarusian Athletics Federation, which wanted to force her to participate in the 4x400m relay, when she was initially supposed to run the 100m and 200m, because two other athletes did not have carried out a sufficient number of doping controls, she said.
"She is holding on"
Refusing this forced return, for
"fear"
of ending up in prison, the sprinter finally went to the Polish embassy in Tokyo on Monday, and Warsaw confirmed having granted her a humanitarian visa.
The young woman was hardly known before this affair, but she had publicly expressed in the past her sympathy for the anti-Lukashenko movement.
The athlete
“received a humanitarian visa.
Poland will do whatever it takes to help him pursue his sporting career
,
”
Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Marcin Przydacz wrote on Twitter, whose country hosts many Belarusian dissidents.
Her husband, Arseni Zdanevich, contacted by telephone by AFP, said he had joined Ukraine because of the conflict between his wife and the Belarusian authorities, which threatened the
"security"
of the couple.
He intends to join her in Poland.
Read also: Diving into the horror of the Belarusian dictatorship on LCP
According to Alexandre Opeïkine, executive director of the Belarusian Foundation for Sports Solidarity (BSSF), an organization supporting athletes in the crosshairs of power in Minsk, Krystsina Tsimanouskaya
"holds
firm
".
“It's clearly a stressful situation, not just for athletes but for anyone who would be under such pressure,”
he said.
According to another official of this NGO, Anatoli Kotov, the sprinter should join Poland this week, while a Tokyo-Warsaw flight is scheduled for Wednesday.
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Attempt to "remove" the athlete
The American diplomatic representation in Belarus praised on Twitter the
"rapid measures of the Japanese and Polish authorities"
, which made it possible
"to escape the attempts of the regime of Alexander Lukashenko to discredit and humiliate"
the sportswoman
"for having expressed his opinions ”.
The leading figure of the Belarusian opposition in exile, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, accused the Olympic officials of her country of wanting to
"kidnap"
the athlete.
"Not a single Belarusian who has crossed the country's borders is safe, because they could try to kidnap them"
, she wrote in a message published Sunday to Monday night on Telegram, calling for stronger international sanctions against Minsk.
Earlier Monday, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) confirmed that the sprinter was
"safe"
in Japan.
“She assured us that she felt safe.
She spent the night in a hotel at the airport "
of Tokyo-Haneda and the body intends to meet with her again on Monday in order to know her intentions and
" support her ",
declared IOC spokesperson Mark Adams.
Representatives of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) are involved, he said.
Read also: The great fear of Belarusian opponents in exile in Vilnius
The Japanese government
"will continue to cooperate closely with the organizations concerned and take the appropriate measures"
, by treating this case
"according to the law"
, declared Monday the spokesman of the Japanese government Katsunobu Kato, without detailing.
This incident comes as the regime of President Alexander Lukashenko, whose son Viktor heads the National Olympic Committee, relentlessly continues to crack down on pro-democracy activists.
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