Artsiom Prakapenka applies for pardon

Lukashenka, however, does not hurry to release the political prisoner.

As Anatoli Prakapenka told Viasna human rights centre, his son Artsiom Prakapenka has been waiting for a pardon for the second month. He sent a pardon application to Lukashenka in February 2015.

Lukashenka earlier promised in public to release political prisoners if they apply for a pardon, but Prakapenka is still behind bars.

The man was imprisoned when he was 20. The penitentiary system influenced him: he didn’t communicate with the outer world, didn’t write many letters and worked in correctional facility No.15 in Mahilou.

Artsiom’s parents were persuading him for two years to file the pardon application, but the political prisoner didn’t agree. He finally yielded to his parents and applied for a pardon in February, but no reaction followed. Pavel Syramolatau, who was tried together with Artsiom, applied for a pardon in 2012 and was freed in the same year. In general, more than 30 political prisoners were pardoned, but only a few of them filed pardon petitions.

Artsiom Prakapenka has been in jail since January 17, 2011. He was sentenced to 7 years in a medium security correctional facility by the court of Babruisk and the Babruisk district for hooliganism (part 2 of article 339) and damaging property on an especially large scale (part 3 of article 218). Artsiom was tried together with Yauhen Vaskovich and Pavel Syramolatau.

Human rights activists say the charges were incorrect, the punishment was too strict and politically motivated. They, however, don’t approve the form of protest chosen by Artsiom.