Lithuania’s Foreign Ministry has proposed issuing free national visas to Belarusians who are persecuted by the regime.
Under the proposed bill, national visas would be issued for free after receiving a request from an institution or a non-governmental organisation registered in Lithuania.
“An increasing number of Belarusian citizens are arriving in Lithuania due to the violence used by the authorities and the ongoing human rights violations,” the Foreign Ministry’s document to the government said.
The ministry also noted that Belarusins arriving under the so-called humanitarian exception, which grants them a Schengen visa, need to apply for a national visa if they want to stay in Lithuania long-term.
The government will consider the ministry’s proposal this week.
Humanitarian corridor
In mid-August, the Lithuanian government opened a so-called humanitarian corridor for Belarusians after the regime launched a brutal crackdown against protesters.
Belarusians willing to come to Lithuania for humanitarian reasons need to turn to the Lithuanian Embassy in Belarus for a Schengen visa and provide information regarding their circumstances.
Once in Lithuania, Belarusian citizens can ask for asylum or apply for a national visa that allows them to work.
Those fleeting emergency situations can also lodge asylum requests at a border checkpoint.
“Brutal crackdown against protesters” – so obviously the French crackdown against the “Yellow Vests” where scores were severely injured and some killed, or those in the US, or Catalonia, or other countries are what? Where was Lithuania’s government’s outrage and support for them?
And did Lithuania propose to give visas or free university education to any of those other country’s protesters? There are no Lithuanian students that are in need?
Some police actions cannot be condoned but it is not only occurring in Belarus.
And why is Lithuania seemingly the only one being so generous?
Would the Belarusans be as interested in LT if LT wasn’t in the Schengen zone and they then could go easily to other countries that are perceived as being more desirable? How many Lithuanians themselves have left ?
Why doesn’t Lithuania make taking care of their own citizens a priority and let the US and Soros, who are financing “protesters”, then pay for their visas and education? Shades of Ukraine when Mrs. “President’s” advisor worked for the Atlantic Council, a NATO propaganda organization? A reminder-Ukraine, after the US financed/led coup of an OSCE confirmed, legally elected, president, is now the poorest country in Europe. It had been Romania.