Ales Bialiatski: Authorities stepping up pressure on political prisoners

The international community should pay attention to spiraling on of the crackdown against the civil society in Belarus.

Yesterday it was informed that a new criminal case had been opened against the political prisoner Yury Rubtsou. As said by him, he is facing up to 3 years of deprivation of liberty for evasion of serving the sentence. Earlier it was informed that he could not find job with the wages equal to the average salary in the country.

A former political prisoner, the chairman of Viasna human rights centre Ales Bialiatski told to charter97.org that this precedent is another proof that despite all promises, the Belarusian authorities have not relieved pressure on the civil society of Belarus, but rather the opposite.

- It is obvious that persecution of Rubtsou for his political views is continued. We are observing the continuation of the hard line towards political prisoners. The latest case was sentencing a political prisoner Mikalai Dzyadok to an additional term, and a harsher regime and crackdown on Mikalai Statkevich, and now the situation with Yury Rubtsou. They prove that the authorities are not going to be transformed and become more liberal, and to act more careful towards political prisoners, – the human rights activist said.

- Now Yury Rubtsou is facing up to three years of deprivation of freedom. How valid the use of Article 415 is in general?

- The Article under which he is to stand trial causes very many questions among Belarusian human rights activists. In fact, it concerns compulsory labour in the place of detention, which is a violation of human rights in itself. After all, this kind of work should have certain guarantees and respect rights of a person who is engaged in it. We do not see that.

- And we are not observing easing of the regime’s pressure on the civil society either.

- Unfortunately, despite numerous promises of improving of the situation in Belarus, the authorities are not going to decrease pressure on political prisoners and on the entire civil society and the regime’s opponents.

The human rights activist has informed that now Yury Rubtsou is more likely to be kept in the remand prison in Pruzhany, and the court is to take place there as well. The date and time of the trial is still unknown.

- If a criminal case had been opened, certain procedural actions are to be made by investigators. After that the case is to be forwarded to the court, and then the date is to be chosen. That is why the process is to last for a few weeks, or even months, -- he explained.

- Will the recent cases of pressure on political prisoners be reflected in the dialogue of Lukashenka with the West?

- It is extremely important for the international community and politicians to know about the new round of persecution of Yury Rubtsou, as for many reasons the Belarusian authorities are interested in improvement of relations with the European Union. It seems to me that the fact that the crackdown on civil activists and opponents of the regime is taking place in Belarus could influence these relations.

We remind that on October 6, 2014 the judge of the Central district of Minsk Natallya Vajtsekhovich sentenced Yury Rubtsou to 2.5 years of corrective labour. One year was cancelled by an amnesty. Human rights activists noted that the trial had been held with numerous violations, and the real cause of the persecution is his public activities. After the verdict was announced, Viasna human rights centre recognized Yury Rubtsou as a political prisoner.