Did prison guards steal money of political prisoner?
Sayrhei Parsyukevich has found himself without money and food after he was transferred to the Shklou penal colony.
According to Syarhei Parsyukevich’s wife, Vitsebsk entrepreneurs have recently attended the Shklou colony to give him a food parcel. But the administration of the colony refused to pass the parcel for Parsyukevich, Radio Svaboda reports.
Parsyukevich also has another trouble – when he was in Zhodzina pretrial detention center, his wife sent him 150 thousand rubles by post for he could buy food or other necessary things in a prison shop. But the prisoner didn’t receive it. Natallya has learnt it from her husband’s friends who visited the Shklou colony.
In the meantime Uladzimir Navumau, minister of internal affaires, had a press conference on 6 June where said some words about Sayrhei Parsyukevich, Andrei Kim and Alyaksandr Kazulin, and 14 participants of the protest rally of entrepreneurs, punished with fined and suspended sentences.
“I don’t know who political prisoners are. If young people throw stones and sticks at militia officers and common people, driving public transport, they are ordinary criminals and they have been punished for it,” Navumau states.
It should be reminded that there are three political prisoners in Belarus now. The international community demand to release them. Alyaksandr Kazulin is sentenced to 5 and a half years of imprisonment for organising a protest action against rigging the presidential elections results. The former presidential candidate has spent more than 2 years and 2 months behind the bars.
Syarhei Parsyukevich is sentenced to 2 and half years of imprisonment. Andrei Kim got one and a half year. It is they who were called criminals by minister Navumau, though no video proving Andrei Kim had beaten a militiaman were introduced to court. Syarhei Parsyukevich said in court he had been beaten up by a prison guard in the detention center on Akrestin Street, though the Belarusian court says allegedly Parsyukevich attacked a militiaman in an interrogation room.
The day of hearing an appeal of Andrei Kim in the Minsk city court hasn’t been appointed yet. Andrei was sent to Babruisk penal colony before the hearing of the appeal.