Activists have rallied for Irina Khalip and her son outside the Belarus embassy in Moscow A woman in Belarus is battling to prevent the authorities taking custody of her infant grandson, whose parents are jailed opposition activists.
Lyutsina Khalip said Danil, aged three-and-a-half, “asks constantly where his mum and dad are”.
His parents, Andrei Sannikov and Irina Khalip, were arrested after an opposition rally on 19 December at which police clashed with protesters.
Observers have said President Alexander Lukashenko’s re-election was flawed.
Police arrested hundreds of people including opposition candidates in the capital Minsk after the election. Many are still being held at a KGB detention centre.
So far 31 have been charged in connection with the opposition protests, Interfax news agency reports.
Lyutsina Khalip, whose jailed daughter Irina is an investigative journalist, said she had had to prove to child welfare officers that she was capable of looking after Danil.
“They suggested that perhaps I wasn’t well enough to look after him. I told them I had everything he needed. I applied to be his guardian,” she told the Europe Today programme on the BBC World Service.
“In the last few days I’ve been running back and forth from place to place, to prove that I’m not mad, not taking drugs and don’t have any sexual diseases.
“They now say I’m medically well enough,” she said, but added that Danil had also undergone a medical check, including a blood test.
“They’ll check where I live to see if it’s suitable, then they’ll decide my grandson’s fate,” she said.
Irina’s husband, Andrei Sannikov, was an opposition candidate in the 19 December presidential election, which Mr Lukashenko won with nearly 80% of the vote.
A Belarus foreign ministry spokesman, Andrei Savinykh, said the detained opposition activists “have access to lawyers and all their rights within the investigation process are being honoured”.
He accused opposition activists of having tried to organise “a political upheaval that was outside all legal scenarios”.
The former Soviet republic saw violent unrest as Mr Lukashenko’s election victory was tarnished by fraud allegations.
Election monitors from the European human rights watchdog, the OSCE, said many of the vote counts had been “very bad”.
The Belarus authorities later closed the mission of the OSCE (Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe).
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