Dzmitry Salauyou: "The issue of political prisoners is systemic. This is a conveyor"

June 11, the book "Chronicles of Belarusian Political Prisoners", developed within the framework of the activities of the website palitviazni.info and the Human Rights Center "Viasna", was officially presented.

During the event, the project coordinator Dzmitry Salauyou said that the website about Belarusian political prisoners had been launched in 2011, after many people had been drawn to criminal responsibility for participation in the post-election protests. Later on, volunteers started gathering information about all cases of politically motivated criminal prosecution beginning from 1989, the case instigated against the artist Ales Pushkin for a performance with political implications. Now this information has acquired the form of a printed edition.

“People continue being punished under criminal articles for socio-political activities. Our aim is to gather it all together in order to show that this is a systemic issue, a conveyor. The number of political prisoners depends on the political situation in the country,” commented Zmitser Salauyou.