Freedom Sunday: Scholar Matskevich urges Belarusians to march for release of prisoners
Amid Belarusians’ keeping silence, many people have been imprisoned in the country, says Uladzimir Matskevich, a methodologist, journalist and one of the Fresh Wind campaign thinkers. In light of this, he has come with the idea of protesters’ marching to the walls of the detention centre in Akrestsin Street in Minsk on August, 23.
According to him, there might be more names on the list of the arrested, beaten, and killed Belarusians. The scholar referred to initiating a new criminal case against the opposition Coordination Council:
“Are we waiting for them to be jailed? Each of them, starting with [Belarusian Nobel laureate] Svyatlana Alexievich? Our friends suffer behind bars, they are being tortured. They suffer for each of us, for our common cause, for a free Belarus. We were patiently waiting, but enough!”
Seeking to get political prisoners freed and meet them at liberty, Uladzimir Matskevich announced holding Freedom Sunday, i.e. marching to the prison in Akrestsin Street and blocking it,
“We will be there until all political prisoners come out to us. At the same time on August 23, the board of the Coordination Council will go to the residence and present our demands to the authorities. They will also ask the ambassadors of European countries to send observers [to the prison walls] so that they could be witnesses to our pure aspirations and the peaceful nature of the march and blockage,” he stressed.
