According to Polish newspaper Rzeczpospolita, Belarusian human rights defender Ales Bialiatski paid a visit to the Embassy of Poland to Minsk asking not to pass the information on his bank accounts to the Belarusian authorities. The cash standing to the credit of accounts was used for human rights defence activity: the centre financially supported the people affected by Lukashenka’s regime.
“After the visit Bialiatski was very easy. He left for Poland where he met with political prisoners from Belarus and told them about his request. He was advised not to go back to Belarus in such a situation. However, Bialiatski was sure that Poland would never pass his data to Belarus. But within some days after his visit to the Embassy its officials did send information on Bialiatski’s Polish accounts,” Rzeczpospolita reports.
The General Prosecutor’s Office did not receive any warnings about the Belarusian human rights defender on the part of the Polish Foreign Ministry, Mateusz Martyniuk, the Office’s Press Secretary, stated.
Ales Bialiatski was arrested in August, 2011, in November he being sentenced to 4.5-year confinement in a medium security penal colony and confiscation of property for alleged large-scale tax evasion.
The fact of Ales Bialiatski’s holding of bank accounts in Poland and Lithuania gave the grounds for criminal prosecution. In court Bialiatski stated that he had no other possibility of getting financial aid from foreign backers. Opening accounts in Belarus turned out to be impossible since the Belarusian authorities repeatedly denied an official registration to Viasna human rights center. He did not admit his guilt.
At the moment Ales Bialiatski is serving his term in Babruysk penal colony №2.
Belsat
