Dashkevich transferred to another colony due to his complaints

Representatives of the Department on serving punishments do not exclude that he may file a request for pardon.

On Tuesday, wife of the ex-presidential candidate Andrej Sannikau Iryna Khalip received an urgent telegram informing that her husband had been transferred from the colony in Navapolatsk to the correctional colony No. 2 in Babruisk. It also became known that the "Young Front" leader Zmitser Dashkevich would be transferred from Horki to another colony as well.

According to Zmitser's lawyer, there is still no information where they are going to send him, although a whole day passed.

Lawyer: “No one provided me any official information so far, although they are supposed to inform the family where the person is by a telegram right after his arrival to the new place”.

In her opinion, Dashkevich may be transferred from Horki to one of the following four colonies: Vaukavysk, Ivatsevichy, Mazyr or Hlybokae.

Euroradio has addressed to the department on serving punishments in order to find out where the "Young Front" leader would be sent to. They confirmed the fact of the transfer.

Department's official: “He is on the way to another correctional institution”.

However, he refused to specify which exactly.

Department's official: “We do not inform the prisoner where he is going to, why should we announce it to the radio! We are not supposed to tell him in accordance with the law. The administration of the new colony will send a telegram to one of his family members - to the one he picks himself. They will write, that a certain prisoner has arrived to their colony, inform what rights he has and the detailed address. He will appear next week, even sooner than in a week. Don't worry - public prosecutors visit him, he writes to everyone, everyone visits him”.

The lawyer does not know the official reason for transfer of her client to another colony. However, she does not exclude that this is the result of Zmitser's numerous complaints about the confinement conditions in Horki. The Department's official confirms that.

Department's official: “There are departmental instructions, reasons and terms for transfer. If, as you could read in the Internet, the colony's administration had biased attitude to him and he demands to stop it - please do! We cannot stop fulfillment of the sentence, but we change the confinement conditions for him. Does it sound logical?”

Zmitser Dashkevich's lawyer, who is at the same time Andrej Sannikau's lawyer as well, did not want to express her opinion on whether this transfer of the politicians means their soon release on pardon. Euroradio has asked this question to the Department on serving punishments.

Department's official: “Our department only fulfills the sentences, you know who takes decisions on pardon. When there is "release", we release everyone, not only the people like these. Everything is done in accordance with the state leader's orders”.

Euroradio: “I mean, maybe he "signed" the request for pardon..."

Department's official: “What do you say? You ask questions in such a provocative way. The whole Internet claims he will never sign such a request”.

The first deputy head of the Department on serving punishments assures that no one forced the prisoners to file requests on pardon.

Department's official: “They (the pardoned prisoners - Euroradio) went out of prisons and claim that they were beaten there or threatened with rape. If a person was suggested to do something and he said no, this means "no", doesn't it? It's 2011 now, don't try to invent some Gestapo methods”.

He adds that no one is against living and working in accordance with the European standards. Only, he says, let the Europeans build new prisons for us - the cell-type prisons, by their standards.