Hunger Torture for Political Prisoner Andrei Klimau

05.11.2007. Tags: political prisoners, political persecution, criminal persecution, hunger-strike, Klimau.
Source: Charter`97.

The deputy of the Belarusian Supreme Council 13 collocation Andrei Klimau who serves a prison term for a political journalistic article is being starved in Mazyr high security correctional facility #20. Food is taken from him: pasta, potato mash, sausages, nuts, tea.

The mother of the imprisoned politician Hanna Piatrouna Klimava said her son had caught a cold and was suffering from constant heart pains. Nevertheless, the administration of the correctional facility #20 refuses to provide the prisoner with medical aid and claims the maladies being induced by the transfer stage (A.Klimau was transferred from an investigation isolation prison to a colony).

Starving is a crime which the world community regards equal to physical or psychiatric tortures. Hanna P. Klimava deems the administration of Mazyr colony is exercising a purposeful policy of annihilation of the politician charged with rough criticism of the head of the ruling regime. The sick politician cannot have a cup of hot tea when it’s cold, damp and sleety outside.

Even those who have nothing to do with medicine know: proper food is necessary for a sick person. Having taken the food that belongs to Klimau, the administration of the colony deliberately decreases his ration, and hence is nearly attempting to kill him.

The policy of starving prisoners was popular in Stalin’s times. And, according to the officials, the restoration of the Stalin’s Line is one of the major interior policies of the state.