Russian journalist: They didn't let me enter Serbia

2023-08-09 14:37:18, Kosova & Bota CNA

The former Russian journalist of the student magazine "Doxa", Natasha Tyshkevich, said that she was detained for 40 hours at the "Nikola Tesla" Belgrade International Airport.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Serbia did not respond to Radio Free Europe's request to confirm the information about the detention of the Russian journalist, but also about the reason why this happened.

Tyshkevich told Radio Free Europe that she arrived in Belgrade from Malta on August 7 and used a "tourist passport" issued to her by Germany, where she currently lives. However, she was refused entry to Serbia.

"I received this document a year ago from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Germany because my Russian passport was confiscated by the Russian police during a criminal proceeding," she told REL.

Natasha Tyshkevich is one of four students who worked for the independent student magazine in Moscow, "Doxa", and who in 2021 were sentenced to two years of "corrective labor". These students were sentenced because of a video where they defended the right of assembly of Russian youth.

As the Guardian reported, they were under house arrest for more than a year after they were arrested in April 2021. They were arrested for posting a 3-minute video on YouTube in which they said students attending the rallies in support of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny were being outlawed and intimidated.

She considered the detention at Belgrade Airport to be a violation of human rights.

"It was really a ban that had no legal reason. I could just wait at the airport. I experienced a panic attack in front of the policemen when they sent me to the cell, but they just shouted at me and told me to go in there, saying that otherwise they would send me to a real prison," the Russian journalist told REL .

According to her, during the 40-hour detention at the airport, she was given little food.

"My friends tried to bring me food through the information center at the airport, but the police refused," he said.

Tyshkevich told REL that on August 9 he was deported to Malta, adding that he will return to Germany.

Another Russian activist was banned from entering Serbia on July 13. The founder of the Russian Democratic Society, Peter Nikitin, was detained at Belgrade Airport "without any explanation".

Nikitin, an anti-war activist, has organized protests in support of Ukraine and criticized the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Another activist from Russia, Vladimir Volokhonski, told REL that he had received a notification from the police on July 25 that he had been refused a temporary residence permit in Serbia.

Volokhonski, an opposition politician from St. Petersburg, moved to Serbia in May 2022, due to pressure and persecution in his home country. As a foreign citizen, he had a temporary residence permit in Belgrade, until his permit was revoked./REL