Political refugees from Belarus deprived of media accreditation for Prague summit

The Czech authorities have canceled the accreditation of Belarusian political refugee and journalist Aliaksei Shydlouski and two other Belarusian journalists at EU's Eastern Partnership summit. Last week, Shydlouski was accredited as a reporter with the newspaper of Belarusian immigrants Minsk-Prague-Inform together with Yauheni Sidorik, the editor-in-chief of this newspaper. According to Charter'97, the accreditation was confirmed by the press office of the Czech foreign ministry.

However, on May4, Shydlouski and Sidorik received a letter from the press service, saying that the accreditation was canceled by security service over the safety of some summit participants. Roman Kavalchuk, also an immigrant from Belarus, received a similar letter.