Zmitser Bandarenka taken to hospital for operation

The political prisoner was taken to the neurosurgical department of the 5th hospital in Minsk in the evening of June 25.

The website charter97.org learnt this from Volha Bandarenka, the wife of the political prisoner.

At 10 am on June 25, Bandarenka was taken to hospital No 5 in Minsk to be operated the next day. “I went to the admission room, his friends were standing at the entrance,” his wife Volha Bandarenka said. “A man in plain clothes came in and said we must go away if we do not want troubles. I was inside the building when I was told that a car with my husband drove away.” As the politician’s wife said, a doctor almost completed filling in hospital admission forms when Bandarenka was taken away. The papers were put in the drawer.

Zmitser Bandarenka was returned to the detention facility of the Interior Ministry. His lawyer visited him there. The political prisoner was taken to hospital in the evening.

Bandarenka, the coordinator of European Belarus civil campaign and agent of 2010 presidential president Andrei Sannikov, was sentenced in April to two years in prison for participating an a protest demonstration on December 19, 2010, against the rigged presidential elections.

His chronic diseases worsened after detention in December 2010 and placing him in the KGB jail. A neurologist examined him in May and said Bandarenka needed an urgent operation – he has four herniated spinal discs and spinal nerve entrapment. The state of health of the political prisoner deteriorated in June, he was taken to the medical unit and then to the republican prison hospital. Bandarenka was given a choice: either he goes to a penal colony or undergoes an operation. He had to give his written consent to the operation. He was denied a consultation of a neurosurgeon. Zmitser’s family and friends say it is in fact an involuntary operation.

President of European Parliament Jerzy Buzek urged official Minsk to release Zmitser Bandarenka immediately. He told Polskie Radio on June 24 that the Belarusian authorities treated Bandarenka in a "disgusting and inhuman" manner. The political prisoner has serious problems with his spinal disks and needs medical advice and rehabilitation, Buzek stated. The further stay in prison would only aggravate his health problems and could leave him permanently disabled, the EP President underlined.