‘Blatant injustice’: Hunger-striking political prisoner asks EU envoys, democratic govts for help
On Monday, Telegram channel Belamova has published an appeal by Belarusian blogger and political prisoner Ihar Losik who went on a hunger strike on December, 15.
According to Losik, he has already spent half a year in prison on ‘the absurd charge’; he ‘would have had to use a teleporter’ in order to commit that crime, he stresses.
“I had and still have an alibi, but the investigation keep ignoring the fact <…> Six months later, I faced another absurd accusation – ‘preparation for mass riots’. How is that possible? Before my being arrested, there had been no ‘mass riots’ at all!” the appeal reads.
As reported earlier, new charges were brought against him in December. Now the case is initiated not only under Article 342-1 of the Criminal Code (‘organisation and preparation of actions that grossly violate public order’), but also under Art. 293 (‘preparation for participating in mass riots’).
Losik says he started hungerstriking because he did not have any other way to change things on the back of the unfounded charges and the wrongful detention. The political prisoner has no doubt that he was unjustly deprived of freedom and barred from being with his family.
“I realise that they might start exerting more pressure on me after my launching a hunger strike: I might be placed an an one-man or isolation cell, I might be deprived of personal belongings, letters, the press, seeing my lawyer. I realise that I might have grave health problems or even die. For the sake of justice, for the sake of the chance to hug my daughter again, I am ready to go all the way. I still believe that the people who control the investigation into these bogus cases have some remnants of conscience,” he writes.
Ihar Losik counts on the support of all unindifferent Belarusians and urges international organisations, ambassadors of EU member countries, governments of democratic states to pay attention to the blatant injustice and contribute to the restoration of his rights and the rights of hundreds of other political prisoners. Hungerstriking will be stopped only after all charges have been dropped or the measure of restraint has been changed, he adds.
Ihar Losik is known as an administrator of the popular TG-channel Belamova which actively covered the events around the 2020 election campaign in Belarus. On June 25, his place in the town of Baranavichy was searched; the man was then arrested. Human rights activists recognised Ihar Losik as a political prisoner and demanded his immediate release.
Belsat.eu
