Hunger-strike of prisoners in Minsk
Human rights defenders from the "Platform"
association obtained a copy of the address of 14 prisoners of the Minsk pre-trial prison.
"We want to state that we stop consuming any food at 0.00 a.m. on 22 February
2012. We ask the administration of pre-trial prison #1 to stop serving meals to
us, as well as accepting any parcels for us," write the prisoners.
Then they explain the reason for this action: "During the preliminary
investigation of our case officers of the organized crime department committed
gross violations of the law with the silent agreement of investigator
S.Vashkevich, which manifested in manipulation of materials of the criminal
case, pressurization on witnesses, victims and accused with the aim to make
them give the needed testimonies, as well as in artificial increase of the scale
of our case with the aim to demonstrate allegedly high indicators of
work."
The accused also note that these facts were proved at court. "About 60
witnesses, victims and accused stated about rude pressurization by officers of
the organized crime department".
The authors of the address call on the General Prosecutor of the Republic of Belarus to "hold objective and
all-sided check-up concerning the gross law violations, committed by officers
of the organized crime department, and personally supervise it."
"Platform" filed applications with the procuracy and the Penal
Department concerning the facts stated in the appeal.
