Opposition candidate Tikhanouskaya denies being forced out of Belarus

Opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanouskaya on Tuesday denied being forced to leave Belarus, contradicting comments from her campaign team, and said the decision to leave had been very difficult.

"I made a very difficult decision. It's a decision I made absolutely independently," she said in a video posted on YouTube.

Belarus's state border committee had denied accusations that Tikhanouskaya had been forcibly removed to neighbouring Lithuania amid bloody protests against the contested re-election of President Alexander Lukashenko.