In late October, an action was launched in the social networks in order to support Homel human rights defenders Leanid Sudalenka and Vasil Paliakou, towards whom the border and customs authorities have been regularly conducting arbitrary and baseless additional inspection and control while they were crossing the Belarusian border. Human rights defenders were repeatedly and thoroughly searched at the state border, their laptops and other data storage devices were confiscated to search for “extremism”, they were removed from the trains and other inconveniences were raised towards them while they were returning home from abroad. The signatories of the appeal asked to stop this lawlessness.
“The frequency of such inspections points to the systemic actions of customs and border control officers against human rights defenders, who, among other things, was never prosecuted for any violation of the procedure of crossing the state border, or for violation of the procedure of customs clearance of the items moved through the boarder. The question is how reasonable is to apply such measures to the citizens of Belarus, who do not violate the laws of the country “, – is said in the appeal.
On 10 November, the chairman of the State Border Committee, Siarhei Maltsau has published a post on the department’s official website in response to the complaints of citizens in the framework of a campaign “Stop the outrage on the border: Support human rights defenders” and listed the legislation norms, that the border control officers apply. Siarhei Maltsau also described the human rights defenders’ actions as follows: “Attempts to politicize the searches carried out within the border or customs control, to link their conduct to specific professional or social activities of individual categories of citizens is to a greater extent a form of exerting pressure on officials at the checkpoints and a desire to assign a fictitious right of immunity for no legal basis.”
The Committee’s chairman assures that the legislation does not limit the frequency of inspections. The searches involve some inconvenience, but they are used at all borders across the world. “Hundreds of thousands of Belarusians and foreign citizens are searched at the border crossings, and they perceive it as a standard part of the process of crossing the border,” wrote the State Border Committee official. Siarhei Maltsau noted that the information about the personal life of citizens affecting their honor, dignity or business reputation or data that can cause damage to their legitimate interests may not be transferred to anyone else without the consent of the citizens. “In the appeals there is no confirmation of the legal authority, which does not allow the State Boarder Committee to transfer those persons, as to third parties, information about the circumstances of border inspections on Sudalenka and Paliakou,” – is said in the response of the State Boarder Committee. The similar response is received from the Customs Committee. “The customs authorities have no right to disclose, use for personal purposes or to pass the information, constituting state, commercial, banking, tax, or other legally protected secret (secrets), and other confidential information to the third parties. In this case, you have not provided any documents and information, proving the customs authorities violated your rights or legitimate interests or illegally imposed any obligations on you”, – was the reply by the State Customs Committee for the citizens who signed the appeal.
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