By Kostas Onisenko
The intervention of the US Secretary of State Department Mike Pompeo was provoked by the refusal of the Belarusian police authorities to allow the entry of the head of the Catholics of Belarus Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz. In a post on his Twitter account, the US foreign minister called on the Belarussian government to allow Kondrusiewicz to enter the country in order to carry out his duties as required by the law. In particular, Mr. Pompeo wrote:
Belarusian authorities should allow the re-entry of Archbishop Kondrusiewicz, so he can tend to his flock during the ongoing protests. He and all Belarusian people must be allowed to exercise their fundamental freedoms, including freedom to worship. https://t.co/S5Gyiq7SdB
— Secretary Pompeo (@SecPompeo) September 1, 2020
“Belarusian authorities should allow the re-entry of Archbishop Kondrusiewicz, so he can tend to his flock during the ongoing protests. He and all Belarusian people must be allowed to exercise their fundamental freedoms, including freedom to worship.”
Meanwhile, the clergyman himself, in his statement, described the decision of the authorities to ban him from entering the country as completely unintelligible. “I applied to the State Border Committee of the Republic of Belarus with a request to clarify the situation and cancel the decision to ban my return to my Homeland in order to fulfill my pastoral duties. I hope this is just an annoying misunderstanding, which will be corrected as soon as possible”, stated Kondrusiewicz.
In his statements yesterday, the disputed President of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, claimed that the Catholic Bishop had been added to a list of persona non grata and that there is an investigation in progress in regards to that incident.