Mikalai Dziadok: System based on lies to collapse

Political prisoner Mikalai Dziadok is sentenced to an additional year in prison.

Judge Ihar Shvedau found him guilty of "malicious disobedience of legal demands of the administration". In four days Mikalai Dziadok should have been released after four and a half years in prison. He was tried in Mahileu prison No. 4, Radio Svaboda reports.

According to Valeryia Khotsina, Dziadok's wife, Mikalai pleaded not guilty.

"I would like to remind every representative of punitive bodies here, any system based on lies, violence, oppression will collapse someday and destroy its every supporter. I wish I would not be in your place when it happens".

Mikalai Dziadok also said that being a political prisoner he was subjected to Administration's pressure and all the present in the court knew it. According to him, a new criminal prosecution was initiated by secret services to make him sign a petition for pardon "through psychological pressure and to try to quash any protest movements that may occur on the eve of presidential elections”.

Mikalai noticed the prison had not had any positive impact on him and in principle it did not have such functions. Political prisoner called the Article he was tried under absurd as he was already punished for it. And now he is punished for the same crime with an additional year. He also noted that that article was a way to put pressure on dissenting prisoners.

Valeryia Khotsina, referring to a lawyer, noted that for the past 15 years there had been no accused under that article. It happens rarely. "It is rather an exception", she repeated the lawyer's words. The lawyer asked the court to justify Mikala.

Dziadok was supposed to be released on March 3, 2015 after serving his punishment.

Human rights activists say that in recent months the Belarusian authorities have tightened repressions against the opposition, journalists and entrepreneurs. New political prisoners appeared, preventive arrests of public activists became more frequent, a number of new repressive laws with respect to mass media were introduced, a blocking of independent sites became more frequent, pressure on a small enterprise reinforced. Experts say it happens because European officials remain oblivious to human rights violations in Belarus and are trying to establish dialogue with the dictator.