SILBAs Chairman Jens-Kristian Lütken arrested in Minsk airport and deported to Latvia

SILBA have been active supporting different oppositional youth organisations in Belarus since 1999. During the years SILBA have organised a number of large summercamps outside Belarus with Belarusian participants and numerious seminars both inside and outside Belarus as well as supported the local organisaitons in other ways.

Thursday 23rd of July 2009, SILBA send 4 representatives from SILBAs Executive Committee to Belarus to meet local Belarusian partners to get an impression of their work and to get a first hand impression of the Belarusian society in a broader sense.

The groups consisted of four SILBA leaders: Jens-Kristian Lütken, SILBAs newly elected chairman SILBAs newly elected chairman; Lasse Blichfeldt, member of SILBAs Russian-Belarus country-group, Tommy Gjedde, SILBAs newly employed project coordinator and Henrik Boesen Lindbo Larsen, chairman of SILBAs Ukraine-Moldova country-group.

The four SILBA members met in Riga Thursday and flew together to Minsk Airport. Their Belarusian Visa had been preordered through a Danish travelling Agency in advance. When the policewoman in charge of handing out the visas, ran the passport of Jens-Kristian Lütken through her scanner, the computer allerted her. First she throught it was a mistake, but trying again, she realised that she was facing a serious criminal... The passport was copied and Lütken was told to wait. Meanwhile the other Danes obtained their visas without problems. Afterwards Jens-Kristian Lütken was called over, as the women didnt speak any English (makes sense then to work in the international airport, handeling visas for westeners) he was handed a phone and an english spaking officer told him that he was unwanted in Belarus. Being asked "why" the officer said, that according to international law, he was not obliged to answer the question...

Jens-Kristian Lütken was held back by the security police and taken to a locked room, where he was put with two caucasian criminals and a somali refugee seeker who has just been returned from Moscow.

The arrest of SILBAs chairman was covered in almost all Danish written and internet medias already Thursday evening. He was interviewed continualy most of the evening and during the morning.

Friday morning he was deported from Belarus, sent with the same Airbaltic plane which brought him, back to Riga. Jens-Kristian Lütken continued to Kiev, heading for Chisinau, Moldova where he will meet with oppositionals and governmental representatives preparing the SILBA Monitoring of the Parliament Reelection 29th of July.

Journalists who wish to interview Jens-Kristian Lütken can contact him on his mobile: + 45 28 39 79 01. He can be reached by email jens.kristian.lytken AT silba.dk