Photo-fact: “Freedom for Statkevich” on banknotes

Banknotes calling to release Statkevich appeared in the country.

Reader of charter97.org Andrei sent a photo depicting a 500 ruble banknote with the text “Freedom for Statkevich”.

“Such money we have in circulation,” he writes.

In May 2011, Minsk's Leninski district court sentenced former presidential candidate Mikalai Statkevich to six years in prison on accusations of organising mass disorders on the day of the presidential elections on 19 December 2010. The opposition politician was sent to correctional facility No.17 in Shklou, but confinement conditions were worsened for him in January 2012 and he was transferred to prison No.4 in Mahilou until January 12, 2015.

Mikalai Statkevich, 58, is the only presidential candidate who is still held in prison.