Imprisoned activist Marfa Rabkova barred from getting medical care, her letters held back
Marfa Rabkova, a political prisoner and former volunteer of the human rights centre Viasna, is allegedly barred from obtaining necessary medical assistance. In addition, her letters are not sent further from behind bars when she mentions the charges in them, HRC Viasna reports.
According to Marfa, she had been asking to undergo an ultrasound examination within a week, but in vain: the prison administration did not respond to the six appeals she had filed. Moreover, Marfa’s letters informing her family and friends about the criminal articles she is facing do not reach the addressees. The administration simply returned those letters to her.
“It is a point of principle – I send them [letters] unchanged again, as it [the accusations] is not related to secrecy of the investigation. Yesterday I put a note to the censor in the letter; there I stressed that there are no legal norms under which I cannot name the [criminal] articles,” she wrote.
Marfa Rabkova, a coordinator of the volunteer service of HRC Viasna, has been kept in Minsk detention centre Nr 1 on Valadarski Street. In the wake of her arrest in mid September 2020, Marfa was charged under Article 293-3 of the Criminal Code (‘training or other preparation of persons to participate in mass riot or financing of such activities’). In February, new charges under Article 130-3 (‘incitement of racial, national, religious or other social enmity or hatred, committed by a group of persons’), as well as under Article 285-2 (‘participation in a criminal organisation’) were levelled against the girl.
In early May, Marfa Rabkova was placed on the preventive list as ‘a person prone to extremism’. The Belarusian human rights community recognised her as a political prisoner.
Later, she faced eight more criminal charges. If found guilty, the girl may face up to 15 years of imprisonment. The notorious GUBAZiK/GUBOPiK (Main Department for Combatting Organised Crime and Corruption) claims that Marfa Rabkova was one of the leaders of the international criminal anarchist organisation which consists of a number of extremist groups banned in Belarus’.
