Vitsebsk human rights defenders intend to collect 50.000 signatures in support of Ihar Pastnou

This is already the third on-line petition in defense of Vitsebsk doctor Ihar Pastnou, who was appointed compulsory psychiatric treatment. Human rights defenders demand a repeated psychiatric examination of Mr. Pastnou.

“The human rights defenders are sure, that the commission of psychiatrists from Vitsebsk could not be objective while assessing his state and the risk he could present to himself and the others, as in their work they are subordinated to the chief physician of the Vitsebsk regional clinical center of psychiatry and narcology Alena Martynava, who initiated his placement in the psychiatric hospital. The decision about the involuntary medical treatment of Ihar Pastnou was taken on the basis of this expert conclusion of Vitsebsk psychiatrists.

If the independent expert commission recognizes the erroneousness of the conclusions, made by the psychiatrists who are Pastnou's colleagues working together with him in the Vitsebsk psychiatric asylum, this can serve as a reason to abolish the court verdict about his involuntary psychiatric treatment.

Vitsebsk human rights defenders intend to collect 50.000 signatures under the petition, “Freedom to the truth-seeking medic Ihar Pastnou, forcibly placed in a psychiatric hospital in Belarus.

This petition was preceded by another one, addressed to the Health Minister Vasil Zharko. Its authors demand to stop the involuntary medical treatment of Ihar Pastnou in the regional psychiatric asylum.

The very first Internet-petition was composed by the founder of the unregistered Conservative-Christian Party “Belaya Rus” Siarhei Ryzhou.