Alyaksandr Atroshchankau: I was told straight in the KGB that we were hostages

“I was told straight in the KGB jail that we were hostages, goods to exchange us for loans,” Alyaksandr Atroshchankau said at a press conference on September 16.

Alyaksandr was a spokesman for presidential candidate Andrei Sannikov at the 2010 presidential elections, BelaPAN reports.

Atroshchankau was sentenced to four years in a medium security penal colony in the criminal case of the so called mass riot in Minsk on December 19. He was released on September 14 after issuing a pardon decree.

Atroshchankau says the situation with political prisoners in Belarus looks like fascism and slave trade. “The authorities know it well. The rule of law has been eliminated in the country. Any person can be imprisoned. Innocent people are release on the ground of a pardon decree. The phrasing about Lukashenka’s principles of humanity sounds humiliating,” the former political prisoner emphasized.

Speaking about a possible dialogue between the authorities and the opposition, Atroshchankau said: “A dialogue with Lukashenka can be held only about handover of power.” “I absolutely agree with Andrei Sannikov, who said about absence of the subject of the dialogue. Having lost the elections, Lukashenka brutally suppressed the post-election protests. The authorities are a bankrupt. They do not have answers to simple questions of people about tomorrow,” he noted.

Another participant of the press conference, activist of Tell the Truth movement Pavel Vinahradau, who was also pardoned yesterday, said it was too early to celebrate because “political prisoners still remain in prisons”. “I think all of them will be freed soon. We need to go on our work and we will win,” Vinahradau said.