Prisoner Mikalay Statkevich Does Not Receive “Novy Chas” Newspaper

The editorial office subscribed Mikalay Statkevich to the newspaper Novy Chas; however the addressee has not got it for more than a year. The administration of the prison excuses by the fact that the newspaper is not in the catalogue of Belposhta.

The chief editor of the newspaper Aliaxei Karol filed an official complaint to the Department of Sentence Execution of the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Department of Sentence Execution (DSE) in Mahilou Region, to prosecutor’s office in Mahilou region and Mahilou prison #4 where Mikalay Statkevich, ex-candidate for president, is serving a sentence for organizing “mass riots”.

The chief editor argues that Novy Chas is an officially registered newspaper, and neither Criminal Executive Code nor inner regulations in colonies provide any limitations for distributing the press from Belposhta catalogues only. The list of newspapers banned for distribution on correctional facilities includes only those that “propagate war, instigate racial, national, religious hatred, violence and cruelty, editions with obscene contents” (art. 89, part 2 of the Criminal Executive Code).

The head of prison #4 A.Dzmitrou answered that Statkevich “subscribes to print mass media which he gets fully according to the set terms” and “he did not ask the prison’s administration to subscribe to Novy Chas”. Approximately the same answer was given by the head of the DSE in Mahilou region U.Skamarokh: “individual subscription is made upon convicts' request to the administration of the facility,” but Statkevich did not ask the administration of prison #4 about Novy Chas.

Mahilou prosecutor’s office and the Department of Sentence Execution of the Ministry of the Interior redirected the complaints to the DSE in Mahilou region.