Georgia has declined to return Belarusian diaspora activist Dmitry Grinkevich, who had temporarily left the country. Human rights activist Roman Kislyak, who has been living in the country since 2021 and has been fighting for protection for more than two years, told this to Pozirk.

As Kislyak noted, Grinkevich is an active member of the Belarusian diaspora in Adjara. In particular, during a picket organized near a police station in Batumi a year ago, he and Andrey Meleshko, who was not allowed to enter the country by the Georgian authorities in September last year, interviewed the human rights defender.

Grinkevich informed that on Thursday morning, he and his friend left Batumi for Tbilisi, and from there to the border with Armenia to extend their visa—a short-term exit from Georgia to extend the visa-free stay.

“We crossed the border on foot,” he added.

According to the activist, when he was leaving the territory of Georgia, the border guards were already “bothering him a little.”

“When I tried to return from Armenia, they checked me for about an hour and a half, after which they issued me a document prohibiting entry into the country. At the same time, the conversation with a representative of the border service was video recorded, who noted that the decision to prohibit entry can be appealed within 10 days.”

Currently, Grinkevich, the author of the YouTube channel ZUХ Źmicer, is at the Sadakhlo border checkpoint and, according to him, is thinking about his next courses of action.

Also, he might start livestreaming from the border on his YouTube channel.