Two weeks pass, Andrei Haidukou gets no parcel

The Navapolatsk youth activist, charged with "high treason", is still kept in the pre-trial prison of the KGB. The investigator who is responsible for his case works at the Vitsebsk Region KGB Department.

"I think they try to exercise additional psychological pressure on my son when he is transferred from one investigative isolator to another, when the lawyer cannot meet with him, when he does not receive parcels from home," says his mother, Volha Haidukova.

According to the woman, the family and friends try to cheer him up:

"When he was transferred from the Vitsebsk pre-trial prison to Minsk at the end of December, nobody knew about it. We prepared a parcel for him so that he could feel the New Year atmosphere in prison. As far as we could not pass anything by the New Year, on 31 December we decided to send a parcel to Minsk. It's location is still unknown. Probably, a half of the foodstuffs got spoiled by this time... His last transfer to Minsk is totally unclear. He is again kept in the pre-trial prison of the KGB, but no investigative actions are conducted: he was placed there on 27 December and had a confrontation with Illia Bahdanau only on 15 January. What sense was in this transfer if the investigator has to go to Minsk for interrogations? I think it is psychological pressure on Andrei."

After the meeting with Andrei Haidukou the Navapolatsk coordinator of the organizing committee of the Belarusian Christian Democracy Illia Bahdanau said that Andrei looked alright and didn't complain about his health.

However, according to the mother, the accused doesn't receive the necessary legal aid: "The counsel has made several attempts to meet with Andrei after his transfer to Minsk. Though he received a formal permission, but was not really allowed to meet with the client – the prison guards referred to the absence of free rooms for meetings. Thus, the lawyer managed to speak to Andrei just once – on 3 January. The next meeting took place only on 15 January, during the confrontation. Meanwhile, according to the law there must not be any obstacles to meetings of counsels with their clients!"

Andrei Haidukou's mother also reminds that her son had to suspend his studies due to the imprisonment. He is a last-year student of the Navapolatsk University, but had to apply for sabbatical leave.

There is no information about the progress of the investigation and the date of the trial. Andrei Haidukou has been kept in custody since 8 November 2012. He was detained while "making a hiding place with some information the could be interesting for foreign intelligence services" and is charged under Article 365 of the Criminal Code, "High treason in the form of intelligence activities. His friends and members considers the charges as absurd and say that the real reason for the detention is that Andrei Haidukou openly expressed his oppositional political views, for which he had been repeatedly warned about possible "troubles" by "men in mufti".