MINSK, October 4. /TASS/. Gennady Mozheiko, a journalist of the Komsomolskaya Pravda in Belarus newspaper, was detained in Belarus upon his return from Russia, Alexei Begun, chief of the Belarusian interior ministry’s citizenship and migration department, said on Monday.
"Belarusian national Gennady Mozheiko was detained on October 1 by Belarusian law enforcers on the territory of our country under a criminal case opened on charges of instigating racial, ethnic or religious hatred (part 3, article 130 of the Belarusian Criminal Code) and insulting a representative of the authorities (article 369 of the Criminal Code)," he said.
"Mozheiko left for Russia and tried to take a flight to a third country," he said. "However, taking into account a previous decision of the Russian law enforcement agencies on the undesirability of his stay in that country, he was denied the possibility to depart and was ordered to leave. Mozheiko left Russia under a regular procedure and arrived in Belarus, where he was detained."
According to Begun, it is not an extraordinary situation. "This is the regular practice of the work of both Belarusian and Russia law enforcement agencies when each of the sides has the right to declare the stay of a particular person undesirable in the interests of national security and public order, in conformity with the international agreement," he said. "We have a list of Russian nationals who are denied entry to Belarus for ten years. Our Russian partners are acting in the same way".