«I do not intend to tolerate this.» The Head of the Lithuanian Ministry of Internal Affairs wants to check the activities of Volha Karach

Lithuanian Interior Minister Martynas Katelinas will appeal to law enforcement agencies with a request to provide a legal assessment of the activities of Volha Karach and the public institution «Nash Dom» (Our Home), which she leads. It is also planned to check the activities of other individuals who were not granted asylum, their ties with hostile states, and organizations associated with them, writes LRT.

According to M. Katelinas, over the past two years, five Belarusian citizens have been identified in Lithuania who were denied asylum due to a threat to state security, but they cannot be deported to their country of origin.

As the minister noted, Lithuanian and international law prohibit the deportation of such individuals, as they prohibit returning a person to a state where they may face torture, inhuman or degrading treatment.

«Thus, an absurd situation arises: Lithuania considers a person a threat to national security, denies them asylum, but cannot deport them. As a result, according to the current procedure, they are issued a permit to reside and work in Lithuania,» Martynas Katelinas wrote on Monday on Facebook.

The minister named Volha Karach as one such individual. According to him, based on the assessment of the State Security Department (SSD), she poses a threat to Lithuania's national security, and in 2015-2019 cooperated with Russian special services.

He also noted that in 2024, the Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania recognized the SSD's conclusion about the threat posed by Volha Karach as motivated and fact-based.

The Minister's concern is also caused by the activities of the public institution «Nash Dom» (Our Home), which is led by Volha Karach. He intends to appeal to law enforcement agencies to assess the organization's activities.

«I do not intend to tolerate this,» the minister emphasized.

M. Katelinas will also ask to assess the activities of other individuals who are in Lithuania and have been denied asylum due to a threat to state security, as well as their possible ties with hostile states.

Meanwhile, the Migration Department will be asked to check whether these individuals hold citizenship of other states, have the right to reside in other countries, or the possibility to travel to a safe third country. The Ministry of Justice will have to assess whether existing legal instruments are sufficient to restrict the activities of such individuals and organizations associated with them. The minister noted that legislative changes would be initiated if necessary.

«Lithuania is not a place where one can use our legal protection and simultaneously act against our state. If we cannot remove a person, it does not mean that we should give up and leave them all possibilities to operate here. The state is not powerless – and cannot be,» the minister wrote.

In 2023, the Migration Department refused to grant asylum to Volha Karach, as she was deemed a threat to Lithuania's national security. However, the same decision offered her a temporary residence permit in the country for a period of one year on humanitarian grounds.

The woman, who has had a residence permit in Lithuania since January 2014, decided to seek political asylum in 2022, when she felt that the Belarusian regime was allegedly attempting to threaten her life. According to Karach, a temporary residence permit in the country is not enough for her to feel safe both in Lithuania and abroad.

Earlier, media also reported that the activist cooperated with Russian intelligence. V. Karach herself categorically denied this information, writes LRT.

According to SSD data, the reasons on which the decision was made that V. Karach poses a threat to state security do not coincide with those she publicly stated.

According to the Migration Department, if a person's life is in danger in their country of origin, they cannot be returned to that state. Such a person is recognized as a refugee and receives a temporary residence permit in the country on humanitarian grounds.

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