The political prisoner was released from Baranavichi pretrial centre on February 9, 2013.
“If I am not mistaken you are the first political to have got liberty after serving the whole term period,” Nast Dashkevich, Deputy Head of Young Front, said when meeting him at the station.
“One always feels a bout of euphoria when released. Nobody shouts:”Wakey! Bedtime!” You can do everything you want in the evening,” Mr Parfiankou told journalists. “What I desire most of all now is taking a bath,” he said. The former political prisoner had a packet full of letters on him; the addressers’ geography ranges from Prague to Washington.
Vasil Parfiankou did not complain of confinement conditions of Baranavich pretrial centre but noted that the administration often kept back his letters: they were handed over to him only after some weeks. He also faced a medical problem because he could not consult a doctor immediately and used to wait for 3-4 days. “Having fever I was lying on my bed and was punished for it because we were not allowed to do so. As for the doctor, he did not come at once,” he said.
According to Parfiankou, his cellmates have been good to him. “They said that there is a great pressure in Belarus. And then I asked them what they had done to better this life”, he said.
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On May 29, 2012 Vasil Parfiankou was admitted guilty of violation of preventive control regime. The verdict was delivered by Siarhei Bandarenka, a judge of Pershamayski district court in Minsk. The activist of former presidential candidate Uladzimir Niakliayeu’s electoral campaign will serve the sentence in a detention facility where conditions are not so severe as in a penal colony.
The 27-year-old Vasil Parfiankou, charged with initiating “mass social unrest”, which based on article 239 of the criminal code, became the first convicted for participation in the 2010 December post-election peaceful demonstration. On February 17, 2011 Frunzensky disctict court found him guilty and sentenced to four years in high-security prison. Moreover, Parfiankou was fined Blr 14 mln (appr. $ 5,000) for the broken doorglass of the House of Government.
The convicted served his term in Orsha penal colony. On August 11, 2011 the activist was pardoned by the president and released. But on April 19, 2012 the investigation Committee informed Parfiankou of opening a criminal case on the basis of his violation of one-year preventive control regime, which had been ordered by court on January 5, 2012.
According to public prosecutor Stsiapurka, Vasil Parfiankou was away from home at time arranged without valid excuse. The defendant explained that he was absent just within some minutes doing shopping. “In my opinion, they put me under preventive control regime to keep me from taking part in social and political activity. I do not think that having gone shopping I committed a crime,” Parfiankou declared. He pointed out that he had been put under control after his participation in the protest action.
The prosecutor demanded to charge Parfiankou to one year of imprisonment in a maximum-security penal colony taking into account that his acting was “recidivous”. In his last plea Parfiankou said: “Whatever decision the court takes I will leave the court room as a free man”.
