“Penitentiary justice is showing its best. Meanwhile, Austrian Foreign Minister is visiting Minsk, as well as German MPs, Social Democrats,” wrote Bialiatski on his FB page. 

The judge Sviatlana Barantsava found Mikalai Statkevich guilty of violating the internal regulations of Shklou colony № 17 and passed judgement to send the prisoner to the cell-type prison facility for the rest of the term for 1 year, 7 months and 15 days.

Mikalai Statkevich was calm during the deliverance of the sentence, as it did not surprise him. He said that he will not write a petition for clemency to the President of Belarus.

What is known about the charges braught against Statkevich?

On the eve of the trial Statkevich’ lawyer studied the criminal case against his client, which consists of 5 volumes.

 “The case consists from the request about the replacement of a term in the penal colony to a prison term, and reports of the violations allegedly committed by him. The first report was written due to the fact that he had allegedly been dressed improperly when he had been taken to the colony, which allegedly resulted in a dispute. Then he was invited to drink tea, and he was five minutes late to bed, which was also registered as a violation, though it is clear that such situation was created deliberately.

All later violations are related to the fact that he was overload with clean-up work. According to the law, prisoners cannot do such work for more than 2 hours a week, whereas he was loaded for 42-45 hours. As it was found from conversations with other prisoners, it became clear that this was aimed specifically against Statkevich. He regarded it as a law violation and addressed the colony administration on this occasion, but was not heard. Then he refused to work. After this, the reports about refusing from work were being drawn up everyday. After they had some 5-6 of them, it became the reason to request his transfer to prison, i.e. they started punishing Statkevich without finding the reasons for his refusing to work. He was deprived from short-term and long-term meetings and food parcels, was repeatedly issued with reprimands. That’s the scheme.”

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Mikalai Statkevich is a former presidential candidate who has been kept behind bars since the presidential election of 2010. The court found him guilty of organizing a mass riot and sentenced him to 6 years in prison. Statkevich pleads innocent and refuses to file a clemency petition for Lukashenka. He started serving his term in Shklou colony. On January 12, 2012 the prison regime was toughened and he was transferred to prison № 4 in Mahiliou. On 12 January 2015 he was returned to Shklou colony № 17 in order to continue serving his term. 

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You can support political prisoner by writing a letter to the following address: 212011, Mahiliou,  vul. Krupskaj, 99a, ST-4, karantin.