A top Belarusian opposition figure who met in Washington with U.S. President George W. Bush last month said Friday that the authoritarian government here has banned him from foreign travel.Alexander Lebedko (photo at left) said the ban, issued to him by the Interior Ministry, said he could not travel abroad because he is under investigation for charges lodged against him in 2004 of slandering President Alexander Lukashenko. "This ban is a hysterical reaction by President Lukashenko to my meeting with the U.S. president," Lebedko told The Associated Press. The Interior Ministry declined to comment.
Not long after returning from the U.S. trip, Lebedko and another opposition leader were beaten by police at a protest in Minsk, the capital.
Long-standing tensions between Lukashenko and the United States have risen recently. Lukashenko this week threatened to expel U.S. Ambassador Karen Stewart if Washington comes through on threats to impose new sanctions against Belarus.
The United States already has imposed sanctions, including travel restrictions on Belarusian officials and measures against a state oil processing company. But Stewart said in December that more could be slapped on unless Belarus releases political prisoners and allows democratic freedoms.
Lukashenko, characterized in the West as "Europe's last dictator," has stifled opposition and independent news media during 13 years in power in the former Soviet republic.
(Source: International Herald Tribune.)
