Several members of foreign youth NGOs were detained during a seminar devoted to the parliamentary elections.

Five foreign nationals who were arrested by police in Mahiliou during Tuesday`s discussion on cooperation between foreign and Belarusian NGOs have been ordered to leave Belarus before September 21, BelaPAN says.

The foreigners — a US citizen, two Germans, a Dutch national and an Austrian — were issued with the order after police officers said that the true purpose of their stay in Belarus differed from what they said in their visa applications.

In particular, they arrived in Belarus on tourist visas but participated in “some training,” according to the police.

The foreigners denied the police`s accusations, saying that they had attended the discussion spontaneously, after being invited to the event by their Belarusian friends. They plan to appeal the order to a court.

***

Police interrupted a youth seminar attended by representatives of several youth NGOs in Mahiliou, Belarus on Tuesday. Several foreign guests are said to be detained by the Mahiliou migration police. The police held the foreigners as they left thei passports a hotel, ucpb.org says.

The grabbed foreigners are the members of Austrian, German, Dutch and American liberal youth NGOs. The topic of the seminar was the parliamentary elections in Belarus.

All the Belarusian participants’ names were noted down, the police promised “to talk seriously” to them. The young activists from Belarus are the members of Civil Forum, the Belarusian Christian Democracy and the United Civil Party.

nn.by