Europe’s last dictator agrees to free reporter after plea by Standard

 
P25 Andrei Sannikov
Oliver Poole19 October 2012

The President of Belarus, known as “Europe’s last dictator”, has promised to free the wife of a London-based political dissident after the Evening Standard petitioned for her release.

Journalist Iryna Khalip was beaten by security services, imprisoned and held under house arrest after she and her husband, former presidential candidate Andrei Sannikov, attended a political protest in December 2010.

She remains unable to travel outside Belarus capital Minsk, unable to leave her home at night and unable to work as a journalist.

Two KGB agents were previously stationed in her apartment and she had been banned from using a phone or a computer, or even going near windows.

President Alexander Lukashenko promised restrictions on her would be lifted when the Evening Standard’s proprietor Evgeny Lebedev travelled to Minsk to interview him. Ms Khalip, 46, who has a five-year-old child, is the Minsk bureau chief of campaigning Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, which the Lebedev family publish.

Speaking in his presidential office, Mr Lukashenko said he would have “everything arranged” for her release and that if Ms Khalip wished she could leave the country. “I’ve already made a decision,” he told Mr Lebedev after her case was raised.

“You see, dictatorship is a good thing too. No other president would have made a decision straightaway, and I have.”

Ms Khalip’s husband fled Belarus for Britain this summer. Speaking from the safe house just outside London where he lives, he called on Mr Lukashenko to now keep his promise.

“We have had a horrible time,” he said of his family’s ordeal. “I miss them extremely. We are not a family who can survive long without each other.” In Minsk, his wife also welcomed the news. “I now feel a spark of hope that I will soon be free,” she said, adding that the police supervising her have so far denied knowledge of the President’s decision. Mr Lukashenko has ruled the east European country for 18 years.

Mr Lebedev’s visit was in association with BBC’s Newsnight, which will broadcast its report on Belarus next week.

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