Political prisoner tattoos “Lukashenka, go away” on his chest

Yury Rubtsou got a tattoo on the occasion of the Freedom Day.

“I need to remember why I was jailed. It began with my T-shirt reading 'Lukashenka, go away' on the Chernobyl Way rally. Policemen tore it off and I was taken to the court topless. I suppose they won't be able to remove these words together with my skin,” Yur Rubtsou noted.

The activist says the procedure was painful, but “nothing happens without pain”. The text is in Russian. Rubtsou jokes he didn't want the artist to make an irrevocable mistake in Belarusian. Yury Rubtsou neighbours in the correctional facility agree with the content of his tattoo, Radio Svaboda reports.

Yury Rubtsou received an answer to his complaint to the Corrections Department. He wrote that internal rules of the correctional facility did not comply with the Constitution. The department answered that no contradictions were found. “However, they failed to present any proofs to challenge my arguments,” Yury Rubtsou says.

Yury Rubtsou didn't work last week. He continues to insist that his salary should be equal to the country's average salary. The political prisoner agreed to get a job with lower wages, but refused to sign an employment agreement, because he thinks his status of a prisoner doesn't allow doing it. He was offered to work as a driver at a hospital. He agreed, but refused to sign an agreement. As a result, he wasn't invited to work.

“I still cannot regularly receive the newspapers I am subscribed to. Jail officers do it on purpose. They don't want me to distribute newspapers among other prisoners. Police officers think I can spread pro-opposition moods among them. People here know nothing without newspapers. Some still believe that Crimea joined Russia voluntary rather than having been occupied by Russian troops,” Yury Rubtsou says about other inmates.

Activist from Homel Yury Rubtsou was sentenced to 1.5 years in an open-type prison facility for “insulting” judge of the Savetski district court Kiryl Palulekh, who agreed to try Rubtsou topless. The activist has been serving his term in the village of Kuplin of the Pruzhany district since the end of 2014.