Ales Bialiatski transferred to Babruysk penal colony №2


Ales Bialiatski has been convoyed to Babruysk penal colony №2 from Minsk pretrial detention centre №1, human rights defender’s wife Natallia Pinchuk informed journalists.

Early morning on February 28, 2012 she visited the pretrial centre intending to find out what correctional institution her husband is being kept in at the moment. «According to centre officials, Ales was transferred to the penal colony of Babruysk for serving his punishment even this day,», Natalia Pinchuk said.

The human rights defender’s wife was not told about either his heath state or any circumstances of the transfer. «As I knew that providing such information is beyond the staff’competence I hardly tried to obtain it», Natallia Pinchuk pointed out.

As it was reported before, Ales Bialiatski was transferred to Minsk pretrial detention centre №1 from Zhodzina centre, where he had been kept in since December, 2011.

Ales Bialiatski, the head of human rights centre «Viasna» shut down by the Belarusian authorities and the vice-president of FIDH (International Federation of Human Rights Defenders), has been in jail since August 4, 2011. He was accused of large-scale tax evasion based on documents handed to the Belarusian prosecution by Polish and Lithuanian officials and sentenced to 4.5-year confinement in a high-security prison and confiscation of property. Moreover, Bialiatski had to pay 721 million rubles of the compensation for financial damage allegedly caused on the state, and 36 million rubles of the court expenditures (appr. $ 90,000 in total). Due to donations the necessary amount of money was raised.

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