Ales Byalyatski still in transit to prison in Babruysk
Convicted human rights defender Ales Byalyatski has not yet been placed in Correctional Institution No. 2 in Babruysk, Mahilyow region, to serve his prison sentence.
After being removed from a jail in Zhodzina, Minsk region, some 10 days
ago, Mr. Byalyatski was put in the interior ministry’s Detention Center
No. 1 in Minsk, where he was held at least until this past weekend.
In
a letter sent to the family on February 23, Mr. Byalyatski asked to
pass a food parcel for him, his wife, Natallya Pinchuk, told BelaPAN on Monday.
Ms. Pinchuk visited the detention center on Sunday, but an officer refused to accept food for her husband.
“He
said that parcels were not allowed, but he confirmed that Ales was
still there,” the woman said. “He writes in the letter that uncertainty
has become a fixture of his life. It is difficult to say when he will be
transferred to another transit point. We delivered a parcel to the
detention center in Zhodzina shortly before his removal from it so that
he could take something along with him. It appears that he ran out of
those foodstuffs.”
“The jail officer, however, said that it is
possible to transfer money to Ales` account to enable him to buy what he
needs at the jail store,” Ms. Pinchuk added.
On November 24,
2011, a judge of the Pershamayski District Court in Minsk sentenced Mr.
Byalyatski, the 49-year-old leader of a human rights group called Vyasna
(Spring) and vice president of the International Federation for Human
Rights, to four and a half years in prison on a charge of large-scale
tax evasion.
The charge stemmed from information about Mr.
Byalyatski`s bank accounts abroad, which was provided by authorities in
Lithuania and Poland. During his trial, Mr. Byalyatski insisted that the
money transferred by various foundations to his bank accounts abroad
had been intended to finance Vyasna`s activities and therefore could not
be viewed as his income.
Mr. Byalyatski`s appeal was rejected by the Minsk City Court on January 24.
