Lithuania wants to limit travel of Belarusians to their homeland. Tikhanovskaya is against

If Belarusians do not comply with the restrictions, the Department proposes to revoke their residence permit, LRT reports.

Two of the six border crossings with Belarus have remained open since March. However, according to politicians, this has not led to a decrease in the number of visits to the country. Currently, 60,000 Belarusians live in Lithuania. Some of them return home up to 7 times a year.

“The majority of arrivals are economic migrants, and not people subjected to violence or oppression by the regime. Given these circumstances, we believe that a legal norm should be adopted that will allow Belarusians who have a temporary residence permit in Lithuania to visit Belarus only in exceptional cases.” cases, and in case of violation of the procedure, it will be grounds for confiscation of permits,” said Aurelia Vernikayte, press secretary of the Department of State Security.

The office of Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who lives in Lithuania, said that the proposal from the State Security Department is an unjustified punishment for ordinary Belarusians who travel home to visit friends and relatives.

The Sejm Committee on National Security and Defense is still discussing whether and how to restrict travel to Belarus.