Warsaw bans Russian journalist from entering Schengen zone until 2020
Editor-in-chief of news agency Rossiya Segodnya, Margarita Simonyan, together with then President Dmitry Medvedev in 2010 (Image: Kremlin)
6 May 2016
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Elise Morton
Polish authorities have banned journalist Leonid Sviridov, a correspondent for the Russian Rossiya Segodnya news agency, from entering the Schengen zone until 2020.
According to Mr Sviridov’s lawyer, Yaroslav Helstovsky, Poland’s Foreign Office ruled that the journalist’s presence in Poland “violates the interests of the Polish state”.
Chief editor of Rossiya Segodnya Margarita Simonyan has stated that Mr Sviridov will challenge the decision by the Polish authorities via legal representatives in Poland.
“The next logical step is an official request to the Office for Foreigners to exclude me from the ‘black list’, because the decision to ban me from entering Schengen area member states is a violation of Poland’s ‘Foreigners’ Law’,” Mr Sviridov told RIA Novosti.
In October 2014, the Polish Internal Security Agency revoked Mr Sviridov’s accreditation and he was forced to leave Poland in December 2015, having been stripped of his residency. While no reasons were given for the decision, speculation arose in the Polish media that the journalist was suspected of espionage.
