Tokyo (AFP)

Belarusian athlete Krystsina Tsimanouskaya, threatened with forcible repatriation to her country after criticizing sports bodies following a dispute at the Tokyo Olympics, obtained a humanitarian visa from Poland on Monday.

This affair, which has shaken up the Olympic Games since Sunday, comes after nearly a year of fierce repression of any dispute in Belarus, a former Soviet republic nestled between Russia and the EU and led with an iron fist since 1994 by President Alexander Lukashenko.

This sprinter says she fears being imprisoned if she returns to her country, which for a year has seen thousands of arrests and forced exiles of opponents, as well as the liquidation of many NGOs and independent media.

Krystsina Tsimanouskaya, 24, said on Sunday that she was forced to put an end to her participation in the Olympics by the coach of her team, before being accompanied to the airport by officials of the Belarusian National Olympic Committee to return to her country. .

A few days earlier, she had strongly criticized the Belarusian Athletics Federation, which wanted to force her to participate in the 4x400-meter relay, when she was initially supposed to run the 100-meter and the 200-meter, because two other athletes did not have carried out a sufficient number of doping controls, she said.

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Refusing this forced return, for "fear" of ending up in prison, the sprinter finally went to the Polish embassy in Tokyo on Monday, and Warsaw confirmed having granted her a humanitarian visa.

The young woman was hardly known before this affair, but she had publicly expressed in the past her sympathy for the anti-Lukashenko movement.

- "She's holding on" -

The athlete "has received a humanitarian visa. Poland will do everything necessary to help him pursue his sports career," wrote on Twitter Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Marcin Przydacz, whose country hosts many dissidents. Belarusians.

The Czech Republic and Slovenia had also offered to host it.

Her husband, Arseni Zdanevich, contacted by telephone by AFP, said he had joined Ukraine because of the conflict between his wife and the Belarusian authorities, which threatened the "security" of the couple.

He intends to join her in Poland.

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According to Alexandre Opeïkine, executive director of the Belarusian Foundation for Sports Solidarity (BSSF), an organization supporting athletes in the crosshairs of power in Minsk, Krystsina Tsimanouskaya "holds firm".

"It is clearly a stressful situation, not just for athletes but for anyone who would be under such pressure," he said.

According to another official of this NGO, Anatoli Kotov, the sprinter should join Poland this week, while a Tokyo-Warsaw flight is scheduled for Wednesday.

- Attempted "kidnapping"?

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The leading figure of the Belarusian opposition in exile, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, accused the Olympic officials in her country of wanting to "kidnap" the athlete.

"Not a single Belarusian who has crossed the country's borders is safe, because they could try to remove them," she wrote in a message posted overnight Sunday to Monday on Telegram, calling for stronger international sanctions against Minsk.

Earlier Monday, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) confirmed that the sprinter was "safe" in Japan.

"She assured us that she felt safe. She spent the night in a hotel at the airport" of Tokyo-Haneda and the body intends to meet with her again on Monday in order to know her intentions and the "support," said IOC spokesperson Mark Adams.

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Representatives of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) are involved, said Adams.

The Japanese government "will continue to cooperate closely with the organizations concerned and take the appropriate measures", handling this case "in accordance with the law", Japanese government spokesman Katsunobu Kato said on Monday, without giving details.

This incident comes as the regime of President Alexander Lukashenko, whose son Viktor heads the National Olympic Committee, relentlessly continues to crack down on pro-democracy activists.

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Belarusian state television criticized the athlete, saying she had "turned his time in Tokyo into a grand scandal".

burs-sah-ras-pop / apo / alf / dga

© 2021 AFP