A Belarusian man has climbed atop a communications tower in Vilnius, protesting the Lithuanian authorities’ decision to deport him from the country.
On Monday afternoon, rescue services were called to Pilaitė, in the east of Vilnius.
“We have received a message from the man that he is on a mobile phone tower and that there is a risk to his life and health,” the Vilnius County Chief Police Commissariat told LRT.lt.
The man himself wrote an e-mail to the police informing them that he was in Pilaitė.
The police called the firefighters, but the man quickly climbed down himself.
“The firefighters set up a trampoline, but we didn’t need to move him down,” a spokeswoman for the Fire and Rescue Department told LRT.lt.
The man who climbed the tower hung the Belarusian historical flag used by the country’s opposition opposing the government of President Alexander Lukashenko.
The man was reportedly protesting the Migration Department’s decision to deport him from Lithuania.
Back on the ground, the man identified himself to tv3.lt as Igor Mikhailovich, born in 1986.
He said that he had previously worked as a volunteer for a presidential candidate in Belarus. He said that due to the circumstances, he was currently working illegally in Lithuania.
The man said that the purpose of his protest was to obtain documents with which he could “live and work in peace”.
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