Last year, the regime of Aleksandr Lukashenko — once dubbed “Europe’s last dictator,” but we beg to differ — put in an interesting requirement: as of September 4, 2023, all issues related to Belarusian documents must be handled within the country. Issues such as, for example, renewing a passport or getting an apostille of a diploma or a criminal background check.
Portugal doesn’t have a Belarusian embassy anyway, but even if it did — those in Portugal used to be able to go through other Belarusian embassies, as there’s one in Madrid and another in Paris — Lukashenko’s decree prohibits embassies from processing expatriates’ documents and bars expatriates from being able to use a power of attorney to get the document work done by someone else in Belarus.
Anyone going through the immigration process in Portugal knows there are a lot of such documents to submit here. And it’s leaving opponents of Lukashenko, many of whom have ended up in Portugal, in a precarious position.
One Belarusian activist — who, like others who spoke to RTP, asked for anonymity for security reasons —tells the news channel that AIMA (the Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum) suggested that the Portuguese embassy in Paris can formally request an apostille from the Belarusian side on the activist’s behalf.
The diplomatic mission, however, said it wasn’t its responsibility, the activist told RTP.
“We moved to Portugal because it was easier to regularize” and “now we realize that it’s difficult and we can’t do anything, nor can we go back,” the activist told RTP.
