Heating is Turned off in Mikalai Statkevich's Prison Cell in December!

December 12th, 2013

Prison No. 4, Mahilou, BELARUS

Heating batteries in the political prisoner's cell suddenly broke as cold weather settled in Belarus.

Radio Racyja learnt it from Maryna Adamovich, the wife of a former presidential candidate. According to her, heating in Mikalai Statkevich's cell and two neighbouring cells hasn't been working for more than four days.

“They say it was caused by a failure. I don't know much about heating systems, but I cannot imagine that a failure can affect only three cells. Mikalai said he had received an additional blanket. But he can use it only at night. They watch him during day hours and even tried to punish him for wearing wrong clothes,” she said.

Maryna Adamovich learnt from Mikalai Statkevich's letter about regular searched in his cell, also at night, which didn't happen before.

“They try to unbalance him with these mean things,” the political prisoner's wife says.
Mikalai Statkevich was a presidential candidate in the 2010 election. He was arresred after a protest rally against the fraudulent election on December 19, 2010. More than 700 protesters, among them presidential candidates Andrei Sannikov, Uladzimir Niakliaeu, Ales Mikhalevich and their team members, were arrested.

On May 26, 2011, Minsk's Partyzanski district court sentenced him to 6 years in a medium security correctional facility. Confinement conditions for Statkevich were strengthened last year. He was transferred from correctional colony No. 17 in Shklou to prison No. 4 in Mahilou.

One of his latest letters from prison was confiscated by a prosecutor's office. As it became known later, the politician wrote that political prisoners had received rape threats.

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 Mikalai Statkevich 

Mikalai Statkevich, 57, is a politician and former presidential candidate, who has been wrongfully detained as a result of his peaceful struggle for free and fair elections in Belarus. Prior to his arrest, Mr. Statkevich played an active role in Belarus’s pro-democracy political opposition.

In 1995, Mr. Statkevich became a member of the Central Rada and Executive Committee of The Belarusian Social Democratic Party and, after unification with the Social Democratic Party of Popular Accord, he became president of the newly created Belarusian Social Democratic Party. In 2003, he became the leader of the European Coalition Free Belarus, a political opposition coalition allied against Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenka.

Mr. Stratkevich was previously detained in 2005 and sentenced to three years in prison for staging public demonstrations protesting the official results of the 2004 parliamentary elections and a referendum lifting the constitutional limit on presidential terms. He was released from prison in 2007.

In 2010, Mr. Stratkevich ran as an opposition presidential candidate. Following the elections, on December 19, 2010, Mr. Statkevich joined thousands of protesters peacefully demonstrating against election fraud in downtown Minsk. Mr. Statkevich was one of hundreds of protesters arrested when police violently dispersed the protest. Following his arrest, he was placed in a KGB pre-trial prison, and later charged under Article 293.1 of the Criminal Code for “organizing mass disorder”.

On May 26, 2011, the Leninski District Court of Minsk sentenced Mr. Statkevich to six years imprisonment in a high security penal colony. At trial, no proof of violent attacks during the demonstration was presented.
At various times during his detention, Mr. Stratkevich’s communication with his family has been restricted and he has been threatened with new sanctions for violating prison rules. On January 12, 2012, a court sentenced Mr. Statkevich to even stricter confinement conditions, and he was subsequently transferred from penal colony No. 17 in Shklou to prison No. 4 in Mahilou for being a “malicious offender of prison rules”. In July 2012, he was also placed in a punishment cell for refusing to sign a confession. Mr. Stratkevich’s wife, Maryna Adamovich, attributes the tough measures against her husband to his refusal to apply for a pardon in protest of his innocence.

In December 2012, Mr. Statkevich was awarded the prestigious Willy Brandt Prize for his political courage. A number of organizations and governments including Amnesty International, the European Union, and the United States have called for Mr. Statkevich’s release.

Freedom Now represents Mr. Statkevich as his international pro bono legal counsel.
 http://www.freedom-now.org/campaign/mikalai-statkevich