Early in the morning, agents of the Belarusian security service (KGB) forced
Podolyak, a Ukrainian journalist, out of his home in the capital of Minsk
and put him on a train to Odessa, Ukraine, according to local and international
reports.

KGB agents gave Podolyak, deputy editor of the independent Minsk-based weekly
Vremya, only 15 minutes to pack before they took him to the train
station. His wife, Irina, a Belarusian native, was left behind.

Podolyak was expelled for violating a law that defines the rights of foreigners
living in Belarus, according to an official KGB statement. The statement
accused the journalist of writing "slanderous fabrications" about the political
situation in Belarus.

Podolyak is banned from entering Belarus for a period of five yearsa
restriction noted in his passport.

In analytical pieces for Vremya, Podolyak frequently criticized the
political and economic policies ofthe government, especially those concerning
relations with Russia.

The Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ), a leading media watchdog
group, condemned Podolyak's deportation. The journalist received no advance
warning about his deportation and was given no opportunity to appeal it,
BAJ said.

Despite his deportation, Podolyak said he would continue contributing to
Vremya from the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, according to the independent
Moscow news agency Prima. Vremya's editor in chief, Pavel Zhuk, said
Podolyak would remain his deputy.

Podolyak is the third foreign journalist deported from Belarus in the past
six years. The heads of the Belarusian bureau of the Russian television
channel NTV, Aleksandr Stupnikov and Pavel Selin, were expelled from Belarus
in 1997 and 2003, respectively.

On June 3, the Information Ministry ordered a three-month suspension of
the opposition weekly Rabochaya Solidarnost for allegedly failing
to inform authorities of a change in