Yadviha Rubtsova: Eastern Partnership summit is not place for Lukashenka's officials

Families of political prisoners cannot understand why representatives of the Belarusian authorities were invited to Riga.

It became known today that foreign minister Uladzimir Makei would represent Belarus at the Eastern Partnership summit in Riga on May 21-22. Yadviha Rubtsova, the wife of political prisoner Yury Rubtsou, is indignant at the invitation of Belarus' representatives to the summit while her husband is being prosecuted for failure to obey the Lukashenka regime.

“I am against the invitation of Lukashenka or his officials to the summit. It is not true that the human rights situation has improved in the country. We have no rights. Rights of ordinary citizens, let alone political prisoners, are not respected,” she says.

– Yury Rubtsou is waiting for the trial. He has been on hunger strike for the second month. How does he feel?

– We write letters to each other. I don't know anything about his health. He writes there's no good but doesn't specify details.

– You were in the European Parliament on May 12, where relatives of political prisoners met with EU diplomats.

– We were told that they were against the participation of the Lukashenka regime in the summit. They said the issue could be considered when the issue of the release of political prisoners was solved. Only in this case a conversation is possible! It turns out now that the are welcomed at the summit.

– Why do they say one thing to you, but it works in a different way in practice?

– I don't know. Our Lukashenka has a talent of camouflaging. I am upset so much.

A new criminal case was opened against the political prisoner for evasion to serve a term of punishment (article 415 of the Criminal Code). Yury Rubtsou refused to work for low wages and demanded to give him a job with the country's average wage – $600. The political prisoner thinks the new criminal case is illegal, as well as the previous case for insulting a judge.

On October 6, 2014, Yury Rubtsou was sentenced by Minsk's Tsentralny district court to 1.6 years in open-type correctional facility No.7. He was sent to the village of Kuplin in the Pruzhany district on December 22.