Political prisoner Bandarenka had leg surgery

Political prisoner Zmitser Bandarenka has had his second surgery since the beginning of his prison term.

Coordinator of the civic campaign European Belarus, political prisoner Zmitser Bandarenka has had a surgery on his leg performed in the Mahiliou reformatory. This is his second surgery since he was imprisoned. Last July he underwent a spinal surgery when spinal disc herniations were removed. Now an abscess caused by the gout was removed. Zmitser told his wife about the surgery himself, on the phone: "He told me about the surgery, that after it he could hardly put his foot in the shoe to walk. The foot was swollen. He says that the pain has never been that strong," Volha Bandarenka told RFE/RL.

Volha Bandarenka asked her husband if he knew anything about Aliaksandar Lukashenka’s new promises to exonerate the political prisoners who had written appeals for pardon. He knew but didn’t expect to be exonerated in the near future.

Zmitser Bandarenka has been in the medical department of the reformatory for more than one and a half months. Apart from the joint disease, problems with his spine are coming back. Four new disc herniations formed instead of the removed herniations. The results of the recent tomographic examination of Zmitser were sent to Minsk. According to Volha Bandarenka, they suggested him moving to the republican prison hospital in Minsk, but he refused: "They suggested the hospital in Minsk for consultations, but he says that he won’t survive the trip – they will never give him a specialized vehicle…"