TOKYO (AP) - A Belarusian Olympic sprinter plans to seek asylum in Poland, an activist group said Monday, after the athlete alleged that her team’s officials tried to force her to fly home, where she feared she wouldn’t be safe from an autocratic government that recently was accused of diverting a plane in order to arrest a dissident journalist.Athlete Krystsina Tsimanouskaya received a humanitarian visa from the Polish embassy in Tokyo, according to a Polish Foreign Ministry official.
The Belarusian Sport Solidarity Foundation, an activist group that is helping the runner, told The Associated Press that the group bought her a plane ticket to Warsaw for the coming days.The current standoff apparently began after Tsimanouskaya criticized how.