Syarhei Kavalenka: Did nothing to ask pardon for

The mother of political prisoner Syarhei Kavalenka visited her son in a detention facility in Valadarski Street.

Lidzia Kavalenka says he son is being asked to apply for a pardon, but he refuses to do so, Radio Svaboda reports.

Lidzia Kavalenka could talk to her son for an hour. She says Syarhei is “white as snow”  and still very weak after a 2-month hunger strike he ended in late March. The mother of the political prisoner learned where he would be sent later:

“He will be transferred to detention facility No. 2 in Vitebsk, where he had a hard time during his hunger strike. He began his fast there and he will return there.”

Syarhei Kavalenka was on a 20-day medical examination in psychiatric hospital. On May 2, he was moved to the detention facility in Valadarski Street. Results of the psychiatric evaluation are unknown. Syarhei's wife Alena does not rule out he may be sent to a penal colony to serve his sentence after an appeal against the judgement is heard by the Vitebsk region court. According to Alena Kavalenka, her husband is being persuaded to apply for a pardon:

“It's unacceptable. How can he apply for a pardon if he was thrown into jail for nothing?”

Alena Kavalenka says a national white-red-white flag was hung out near the Medical University building in Vitebsk on May 4. The note fixed to the flag reads patriots have solidarity with Syarhei Kavalenka.

Syarhei Kavalenka, an activist of the CCP/BPF party was sentenced to 2 years of imprisonment for violation the rules of the suspended sentence he received for hanging out a white-red-white flag on a Christmas Tree in Vitebsk in 2010.