Imprisoned human rights defender allowed parcel


The first food parcel for the year has been passed to the political prisoner Ales Bialiatski on August 7, human rights centre Viasna reports.

Earlier, on 6 May 2013, his wife Natallia Pinchuk paid a visit to the penal colony No.2 intending to hand over a food parcel to the political prisoner. However, according to the prison officials since March 2013 Mr Bialiatski had been denied the right to receive food parcels for another 6 months as a result of the imposed penalties.

It is to be recalled that in the period of March-June 2012 Ales Bialiatski was reprimanded thrice which resulted in his deprivation of the right to be visited by his relatives, and of the right of amnestied. In August, 2012 he received two more reprimands for insignificant violations of the regime. Thus, the political prisoner hasn’t received any food parcels for 8 months.

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Ales Bialiatski was detained on August 4, 2011 in Minsk. In November, 2011 he was found guilty of large-scale tax evasion and sentenced to 4.5 years of imprisonment in a medium-security penal colony and confiscation of property.

The fact of his holding bank accounts in Poland and Lithuania gave the grounds for criminal prosecution. 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. In court Bialiatski stated that he had no other possibility of getting financial aid from foreign backers.

www.belsat.eu/en

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