POLICE AUTHORITIES DO NOT LET CONVICTED EDITOR VISIT HIS ILL PARENTS ON WEEK ENDS

Viktar Ivashkevich, editor of The Rabochy newspaper has been serving his sentence for “slandering Lukashenka” in Baranavichy minimum security prison since December 2002. Earlier the prison administration allowed Viktar to visit his ill parent in Minsk on week-ends. Recently Minsk police authorities robbed him of such a possibility.
Viktar Ivashkevich was sentenced in September 2002 to 2 years in open prison for the article “A Criminal Must Be in Prison”, dedicated to Lukashenka and his associates. On 16 December 2002 Ivashkevich was sent to Baranavichy to serve his sentence.
He had to leave his aged parents in Minsk. His mother has been undergoing medical treatment for cancer for 2 years. She has spend several last months in bed. His father has fractured a leg and needs care himself. Viktar came to Minsk every-weekend to help his parents.
However, recently the district police officer has sent a letter to Baranavichy prison administration, saying that, because he does not know Ivashkevich personally, he considers Viktar’s visits to Minsk inexpedient.
In case Ivashkevich violates the injunction and makes an unauthorized visit to his parents, he will be sent to a higher-security prison with no chance of parole.

Ivashkevich’s parents addressed the head of Savetski police board of Minsk, asking to cancel the injunction.