2001 press releases

Embassy Statement on Detention and Deportation of U.S. Citizen Robert Fielding (August 29, 2001)

The U.S. Embassy has strongly protested to the Government of Belarus through diplomatic channels the deportation of U.S. citizen Robert Fielding from Belarus.  Mr. Fielding was taken from a Grodno hotel by four plain-clothesmen and detained by Belarusian authorities on Saturday, August 25 for alleged violations of hotel registration regulations. He was then subjected to a 10-hour interrogation by law enforcement officials who just "happened" to be accompanied by the television cameras of Belarusian National Television. Finally, Mr. Fielding was forced to depart Belarus on a train for Poland without even the right to gather any of his personal belongings from his legally-registered residence in Minsk. During this entire interrogation process, he was denied the right to legal counsel, forced to sign a statement, and subjected to being filmed by the state-controlled Belarusian National Television that later showed parts of this interrogation on its prime-time national "news" program "Rezanans" less than 24 hours after his deportation.

The Belarusian authorities then changed their story and claimed that Mr. Fielding was deported based on the Law of the Republic of Belarus on Legal Status of Citizens and Stateless Persons in the Republic of Belarus. Unfortunately, despite the efforts of the consul and the Ambassador, the U.S. Embassy was not able to contact a Belarusian government official, other than the duty officer at the Ministry of Foreign Relations, to confirm the facts of this case.  It is curious that the state-controlled Belarusian National Television had enough advance notice about the detention of an American citizen in order to be able to film the entire interrogation but that responsible Belarusian government officials were not available during the weekend to discuss such an important issue that not only affects Mr. Fielding but relations between the U.S. and Belarus.

The U.S. Embassy would like to emphasize the following:  The Government of Belarus is a signatory to the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations which assures notification, without delay, of home-country consular officers in cases where a foreign national is detained.  The Government of Belarus acted with extraordinary haste to see that Mr. Fielding was deported before he could see a U.S. consular officer. According to the Belarusian criminal procedure code, a person has the right to legal counsel before interrogation. Belarusian officials prevented Mr. Fielding from exercising this right including by telling the lawyer retained to assist him that Mr. Fielding had been released when, in fact, he was still in custody. Lastly, it should be noted that Mr. Fielding's Belarusian visa was due to expire on Tuesday, August 28, just three days after this incident occurred.  If the Government of Belarus had objections to his open, transparent activities in conducting seminars regarding democratic voting processes, it could simply have declined to renew his visa.

By taking the extraordinary action of detaining and harassing an American citizen apparently for the sole purpose of creating a propaganda piece for the state-controlled Belarusian National Television, the Government has raised serious questions about its intentions.