Georgia denies asylum to Belarusian dissident
(Maryna Zialonaja on Facebook)
September 5, Pozirk. Georgia has denied political asylum to Maryna Zialonaja (Kalinina) of the Belarusian opposition Coordination Council.
“My child and I qualify [for protection] under the 1951 Geneva Convention on Refugees, but we do not qualify from the perspective of the Georgian State Security Service,” she said on Facebook.
Zialonaja, a kickboxing and Thai boxing coach, noted that she wants to appeal to the country’s Ombudsman.
In August, Georgia denied asylum to Raman Kiślak, a Belarusian human rights activist. The migration office said that his presence ran counter to Georgia’s interests.
Kiślak and Zialonaja staged pickets in Tbilisi in an attempt to cut through the migration office’s red tape.
Kiślak said that Georgia had rejected applications from several Belarusian asylum seekers before.
In the spring of 2024, the Belarusian Investigative Committee opened criminal cases against all 257 candidates for the Coordination Council.
