Prison guards steal money from political prisoner Siarhei Parsiukevich?

09.06.2008. Tags: political prisoners, political persecution, Kazulin, Kim, Parsiukevich.
Source: Charter`97.

Siarhei Parsiukevich has found himself without money and food after he was transferred to the Shklou penal colony. According to his wife, Vitsebsk entrepreneurs have recently attended the prison to pass him a food parcel, but the administration of the colony refused to accept it, RFE/RL reports.

Parsiukevich also has another trouble – when he was in Zhodzina pretrial detention center, his wife sent him 150 000 rubles by post for could buying food or other necessary things in the prison shop. The prisoner has not received it. Natallia Parsiukevich has learnt it from her husband’s friends who visited the colony.

In the meantime Uladzimir Navumau, minister of internal affaires, had a press conference on 6 June where said some words about Siarhei Parsiukevich, Andrei Kim, Alexander Kazulin and the 14 participants of the protest rally of entrepreneurs, punished with fines and personal restraint.

‘I don’t know who political prisoners are. If young people throw stones and sticks at police 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. Alexander Kazulin has been sentenced to 5,5 years of imprisonment for having organized 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.

Siarhei Parsiukevich has been sentenced to 2,5 years of jail. Andrei Kim got one 1,5 years. It is they who were called criminals by minister Navumau, though no video proving Andrei Kim had beaten a policeman were introduced to court. Mr. Parsiukevich said in court he had been beaten up by a prison guard in the detention center in Akrestin Street, though the Belarusian court says that it was allegedly Parsiukevich who attacked a policeman in an interrogation room.

The day of hearing an appeal of Andrei Kim in the Minsk city court has not been appointed yet. Andrei was sent to Babruisk penal colony before the hearing of the appeal.