The Human Rights Center “Viasna”

News for July 2011

13.07.2011 Andrei Sannikau transferred to cell with more prisoners

The health of the presidential candidate has deteriorated.

12.07.2011 Woman lost her baby after detention at 3 July protest action

Katsiaryna Radzivilka, the pregnant woman who was arrested on 3 July during the silent protest on Pryvakzalnaya Square in Minsk, had a miscarriage. Her husband was detained together with her and is serving an arrest term.

12.07.2011 Police warn potential participants of silent protests

Maksim Kavaliou, a civil activist from Mahiliou, received a call from the police. He was warned about the inadmissibility of participation in silent protest actions and told that there were some lists of participants of such actions. Nevertheless, the activist doesn't refuse from his intention to support the peaceful protests.

12.07.2011 Political prisoner Mikita Likhavid is in penal cell again

The prison administration has combined 4 violations and has imprisoned Mikita in a punishment cell for 20 days, informs Radio Liberty. The activist has also been limited in the opportunity to make purchases in the prison shop – he is allowed to spend only 70,000 rubles a month on food although prisoners are usually allowed to spend more than 200,000.

12.07.2011 Babruisk UCP office sealed

There was nobody in the office expect for the lessor during the visit of representatives of the Prosecutor’s Office who took pictures of the doorplate, “talked” to the owner of the office and promised to come back a week later. The landlord sealed up the office on his own after the conversation, informs Bobruyskiy Kurier.

12.07.2011 Vileika: priest fined for refusal from dactylography

A father with many children, archpriest Ihar Prylepski serves masses in the St. Paul and Peter church in the village of Kasuta in the Vialeika district. Like the majority of the Belarusian men, he received a summons to the police in order to get fingerprinted.

12.07.2011 Fine to Radio Liberty's correspondent

The Leninski District Court of Hrodna fined Mikalai Karnevich, the Hrodna correspondent for Radio Liberty, 1,050,000 rubles for “participation in the unauthorized action” held there on 3 July. The court ignored the document confirming that the journalist worked there.

12.07.2011 Tatsiana Seviarynets got fined

Tatsiana Seviarynets, the mother of the political prisoner Pavel Seviarynets and a member of the organizing committee of the Belarusian Christian Democracy, was detained in Vitsebsk in the evening of 8 July and taken to the police where she was interrogated. She spent the weekend at the police station.

12.07.2011 Navapolatsk: newspaper distributor fined for “obscene language”

Mikalai Chartkou, a distributor of the Tut i Zaraz bulletin, was fined 70,000 rubles under Article 17.1 of the Code of Administrative Offenses, “disorderly conduct”.

12.07.2011 Minsk protesters transferred to prison in Zhodzina

According to our information, all people who had been sentenced to arrest for participation in the silent protest actions in Minsk, except for Natallia Bakinouskaya, were transferred from the prison in Akrestsin Street to the prison in the town of Zhodzina, including the five people who were left there after the transfer of the majority of prisoners.

11.07.2011 Baranavichy: civil activist Uladzimir Hundar appeals unlawful actions of police

On 8 July 2011 civil activist Uladzimir Hundar lodged an appeal against unlawful actions of officials of the Baranavichy City Police Department and the head of the Baranavichy police.

11.07.2011 Court returns cassation appeal to political prisoner Rymasheuski

The Frunzenski District Court of Minsk returned the cassation appeal to a former presidential candidate, co-Chair of the organizing committee of the Belarusian Christian Democracy Vital Rymasheuski.

11.07.2011 Valery Klimichenka sentenced to 15 days of arrest

The activist was detained at the silent protest action in the town of Maladechna on 6 July. However, at the trial he demanded to summon additional witnesses. As a result, the proceedings were postponed to 11 July. However, it didn’t help the defendant, who was sentenced to 15 days of arrest, a maximal sentence provided by Article 23.34 of the Code of Administrative Offences, “violation of the rules of organizing or holding a mass event”.

11.07.2011 Yury Salodki: beaten, imprisoned, keeping dry hunger-strike

Hanna, the wife of the arrested protester Yury Salodki, says that her husband has been keeping a dry hunger-strike for 7 days already in the prison in Akrestsin Street in Minsk. He has been sentenced to 13 days of arrest for participation in the silent protest action on Pryvakzalnaya Square in Minsk on 3 July.

11.07.2011 Hrodna: arrested protesters keep hunger-strike of protest

According to http://harodniaspring.org, the people who were detained during the silent protests in Hrodna and are kept in prison, are keeping a hunger-strike of protest against the unlawful imprisonment. Civil activists from Hrodna learned about it when they started insisting on passing food parcels to the prisoners, whereas the guards refused to take them. Soon the guards had to admit that the arrested refused from food.