Lukashenko assigned associate professor

Nikolai Petrovsky arrested and will be deprived of Russian citizenship for remarks about the president of another country

In issue 66 of June 23, Novaya Gazeta wrote about Russian citizen Nikolai Petrovsky, who was deprived of Russian citizenship after his persecution began in Belarus (the article “Belorusskaya station has the status of a special zone”)...

In issue 66 of June 23, Novaya Gazeta wrote about Russian citizen Nikolai Petrovsky, who was deprived of Russian citizenship after his persecution began in Belarus (the article “ Belarusskaya station has the status of a special zone” ).

Recall: Nikolai Petrovsky came to Belarus after graduating from Moscow State University on distribution in the last year of the existence of the USSR. Returning to Moscow in 1993 and not finding a decent job there, he decided to work in Belarus, especially since he was offered the position of dean of the Faculty of Law at Brest University. Petrovsky, like all Russian citizens, received a Russian passport instead of a Soviet one in due time, and in the late nineties he was also given Belarusian citizenship as a permanent resident and worker in Belarus.

Last year, at a lecture after a parade in Minsk, Petrovsky questioned Alexander Lukashenko's mental health because he brought his six-year-old son Kolya to the parade, dressed in a marshal's uniform, and forced officers and generals to salute the boy. After that, persecution began, visits by KGB officers, and after that, an arrest allegedly on charges of taking a bribe, which, as it turned out, was not there, and the case fell apart.

When Petrovsky nevertheless decided to leave the country of marshals, the Belarusian security forces put him on the wanted list. And the Federal Migration Service for Moscow deprived him of Russian citizenship on the grounds that on February 6, 1992 he worked on distribution in Belarus and was registered in a Brest hostel, and not in Moscow - that is, she took advantage of the 1991 citizenship law, which was no longer in force, and was canceled in 2002.

Petrovsky was determined to seek the restoration of citizenship. But he didn't. On July 5, the former dean was detained by employees of the MUR and a Brest police officer who joined them. Petrovsky was taken to the Moskvorechye-Saburovo department. There he spent almost two days without food, and for a diabetic, this is like playing Russian roulette.

On July 7, the Nagatinsky Court considered the issue of choosing a preventive measure before considering the issue of extradition to Belarus. The High Court, in particular, asked: “If you were persecuted in Belarus for political reasons, why didn’t you ask for political asylum in Russia?” Petrovsky explained that he could not apply for asylum in the country of which he was a citizen. Showed the passport of a Russian citizen with Moscow registration. His lawyer brought the conclusion of the police check, where it was written that the passport was genuine and received justifiably, but the actions of the FMS were erroneous.

Nevertheless, Judge Ekaterina Tsveleva decided to detain Petrovsky until September 5. By this time, the Prosecutor General's Office should make a decision on his extradition.

However, let's leave for now the rhetorical question of what will happen to Petrovsky if he finds himself in the hands of Belarusian justice. Nikolai Petrovsky, born and raised near Rostov, registered in Moscow and receiving a Russian passport three times: in 1995 (an insert for a Soviet passport), in 2001 (exchange for a new Russian passport) and in 2005 (exchange of a passport at 45 years), has never aroused suspicion among the valiant officers of the Moscow police. It turns out that all three times he was issued a passport illegally? Then the entire Moscow police, together with the Federal Migration Service, should resign, but rather go to court for negligence. However, a police check confirms that the passport was issued justifiably. Then why does the FMS in Moscow deprive a person of citizenship on the basis of a long-forgotten law?

Petty officials do not know the current laws simply because they are too lazy to read, and because they are practically unpunished? A person is not a gas, and therefore one can make a concession to Lukashenka, who asked for such a small thing as the expulsion of some dean?

PS Still, I hope that big officials sometimes read newspapers. So I ask you to consider this material as an appeal to the director of the Federal Migration Service of Russia, Konstantin Romodanovsky.