Statkevich: Zmitser Dashkevich is in most difficult situation

Relatives of imprisoned “Decembrists” managed to combine efforts and break the information blockade of the inmates of the Shklou penal colony.

Presidential candidate Mikalai Statkevich receives packets of letters, while the colony authorities explain the blockade with “technical mistakes”. Prisoners of the Shklou colony are still under pressure, though not as strong as before. The politician thinks that Young Front leader Zmitser Dashkevich, who is in penal colony No 9 in Horki, is in the most difficult situation.

“Zmitser has faced the most difficult situation. They try to break him and even prepare a provocation against him spreading defaming disinformation about him. I have an impression that the prison authorities do not understand what is happening in the country and what expects the authorities and those who commit crimes to get a promotion. The Soviet coup attempt was twenty years ago. It lasted three days, but how many denouncements against ‘supporters of anti-democratic junta” we saw. People informed on their chiefs and peers, competitors for promotion. I am sure that the most far-sighted law enforcement officers are collecting data about their chiefs and co-workers. What will happen to those organizing provocations against Zmitser, when the situation is changed? Can they imagine what a disgrace it will be for their wives and children? No one will defend them,” Mikalai Statkeivch wrote in a letter of July 24.

“… You already know why I cannot phone and why letters are delivered in such a way. I was given 15 letters on Thursday and promised everything would be better. Let’s see, but lying to a prisoner it’s not a crime here,” Mikalai Statkevich says.

His wife says that in spite of censorship, Statkevich manages to hint that Shklou prisoners are still under pressure. “I did 9 pull-ups yesterday, but it is due to ‘doping’. I was very angry with a senior lieutenant. I wanted to ask him to come every day, but then I understood he comes there not on his own will… So, he cannot be doping,” Mikalai Statkevich writes.

The politician writes in one of his post-blockade letters that pressure began after a “creature” had visited Shklou. But now censors try to avoid such mistakes. “I’d already written that I have problems with letters and phone calls after the visit of …,” the words “wicked creature” are crossed out by censorship.

Mikalai Statkevich does not have problems with health: he could do only three pull-ups after arrival in the colony, but he does nine. “I recover in spite of intrigues of the wicked creature,” Mikalai Statkevich does not lose his optimism behind the bars.

Ivan Hrekau, “Belorusski Partizan”