Mikalai Statkevich - the truth about pressure on political prisoners

Politician condemns those oppositionists who call the West to engage in dialogue with Lukashenka.

By appealing to a Prosecutor's Office Mikalai Statkevich, he says, is trying to record rules existing in Shklou colony and experienced by political prisoners, Radio Svaboda reports.

In his words, there is a special system created to put pressure on prisoners. The prisoners cooperating with the administration in putting pressure have privileges. For instance, some prisoners "in power" have a right to have an "aide-de-camp".

The wife of Mikalai Statkevich Maryna Adamovich spoke about his husband's recent complaints sent to the Prosecutor's Office, and what it cost him.

"To begin with, his current stay in Shklou colony Mikalai considers being temporary. He says the administration intends and does everything possible to put him behind bars again. Now, he does everything to record what was happening there and is happening with political prisoners. I mean his first stay in Shklou colony after the trial, when there were 5 political prisoners and his current stay in the Shklou colony after a prison in Mahileu.

Mikalai has sent two complaints to the General Prosecutor's Office. In the end of January he complained about false reasons for punishment. Only two months later, in March, my husband was acquainted with the answer of the Mahileu Department of Corrections which had his complaint checked. Definitely, they did not found facts of physical and moral pressure, and Mikalai Statkevich wrote a new complaint, where he listed facts of pressure on him since he was placed in the colony in the summer of 2011. He described everything in details and, as they say, the reaction was not long in coming. That day he sent his complaint he was drawn up another protocol for allegedly improper performance of duties and regime violation. Mikalai believes they want to make him a malicious offender to send him to a Punishment Isolation Cell or a Ward-type Room.

Mikalai Statkevich also wrote about services of team "managers" to put pressure on political prisoners. He believes that in the prison since 2011 political prisoners have been required to write petitions for pardon. So-called team "managers" and their allies have joined the "campaign". "With no legal power to control other prisoners they often use physical and psychological pressure". They have a whole range of privileges and preferences from leadership instead," Mikalai Statkevich wrote.

The politician found some "managers" participated in putting pressure on political prisoners had a parole.

"Mikalai found it when he was sent to the Shklou colony for the second time. It turned out those "managers" with long terms, had already been released. He knows names of those who were offered to put pressure and encourage provocations against him. Both these people and their assistants have already been released," Maryna Adamovich says.

"Another story is about "aide-de-camps".

"Mikalai Statkevich says the administration of the Shklou colony organizes close contacts with some prisoners and grants them privileges. For example, one of the leaders of the so-called "management", convicted of murder, has his own aide-de-camp. He cooks and through the whole territory brings meals. It is likely coordinated with the administration if the aide-de-camp is allowed through all the posts in the colony", Maryna Adamovich said.

In Shklou colony Mikalai Statkevich is in the first squad and lives in a general barrack. Political prisoner works as cleaner. The territory he is required to clean up has been recently increased in five times, though the number of cleaner has been reduced.

"Some people just tear off a sheet of paper on a cleaned area to provoke a conflict between Mikalai and other prisoners. It used to happen during his first stay in the colony, but he does not yield to such provocations", his wife said.

She says her husband continues monitoring political events in Belarus, as well as international events and reacts to these events. He still believes the best scenario for election campaign is the nomination of a political prisoner as a single candidate for the Presidency. It will allow taking a good position and coming out of the election campaign in case the government does not register such candidate. Mikalai Statkevich also spoke about the politicians in Belarus who agreed to improve relations between the West and the Belarusian regime by lowering attention to the problem of political prisoners. Mikalai Statkevich considers such maneuvers neither useful nor moral for Belarus.

Former presidential candidate Mikalai Statkevich was sentenced to six years in prison for organizing mass disorder on the day of presidential elections in December 19, 2010. He pleaded not guilty and he still refuses to write a petition for pardon. After the trial he was kept in Shklou colony for about two years. Then, he was considered a malicious regime violator and spent some time in Mahileu prison, from where he was sent again to the Shklou colony in January 2015.