Zmitser Bandarenka transferred to penal colony

It was done in secret. Relatives of the political prisoner were not informed.

Zmitser Bandarenka was in the detention facility of the Minsk main police department in Valadarski Street yesterday. Alyaksandr Valantsevich, an activist of European Belarus civil campaign came to the detention facility today to learn news about the political prisoner. He was told Bandarenka had already been sent to penal colony Nr 15 in Mahilou, the activist said to charter97.org website.

Politician's wife Volha Bandarenka and a lawyer are going to visit the colony in the nearest days to ask how Zmitser survived the transfer. The political prisoner was to be taken to the colony on the stretcher.

The coordinator of European Belarus civil campaign underwent a spine surgery (his bilateral hernia of intervertebral disk was removed) in early August. He was sent back to the detention facility in Valadarski Street.

The political prisoner did not have a post-operative rehabilitation course in the prison hospital. He needed magnet therapy, physical exercises, leg massage, medicines. He received only pills.

the political prisoner is not recommended to sit during some months after the operation. He will have to serve his sentence on his foot from 6 am to 10 pm.