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| - A Belarusian opposition politician barred from presidential elections has fled to Moscow fearing arrest, his campaign team told AFP on Friday. Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko is running for a sixth term in the August 9 election and his regime has cracked down on the opposition ahead of the ballot, detaining protesters and would-be candidates. Valery Tsepkalo, who was not allowed to register as a candidate, has "gone to Moscow with his children, fearing for his safety," Alexei Urban, a spokesman for the former diplomat, told AFP. His wife, Veronika Tsepkalo, is remaining in Belarus to help the campaign of the leading rival to Lukashenko standing in the polls, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya. Veronika Tsepkalo told Belarusian Tut.by news site that she and her husband decided he should leave with their children after they received "information from reliable sources that they plan to detain my husband on spurious grounds." She said that two days previously prosecutors had visited their children's school and asked teachers to write statements. "As I understand, they have launched the process of depriving me of parental rights," she said. "That's why we took the decision to get Valery and the children out of Belarus because we see a real threat and danger." Lukashenko, a former collective farm director, has ruled the ex-Soviet country since 1994, suppressing and jailing opposition figures and holding elections not ruled free and fair by European observers. Previously, Tikhanovskaya, the one serious opposition candidate allowed to stand, said that she had also sent her two children abroad for their safety. Tikhanovskaya said that while touring the country to gather support for her campaign, she had received an anonymous phone call threatening to jail her and take her children into care. Tikhanovskaya, an English teacher by training, is standing for president after her husband Sergei Tikhanovsky, a popular YouTube blogger, was detained and barred from standing himself. He is currently in prison. Tikhanovskaya has joined forces for her campaign with an all-women team made up of Veronika Tsepkalo and Maria Kolesnikova, the campaign chief of ex-banker Viktor Babaryko who was detained after announcing his presidential bid and had his candidacy thrown out. Amnesty International last week condemned the authorities' "misogyny" in their treatment of women activists, citing threats of sexual violence and the forced removal of children. tk-am/jbr/pma
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