Democratic forces in Belarus have started a campaign demanding decent serving conditions in the detention center in Akrestsina Street in Minsk. This institution is well-known in Belarus as the jail where participants of civic actions, youth activists and political opponents of the regime serve short-term arrests. The present conditions of incarceration, mainly of political prisoners, are more like torture, Valiantsin Stefanovich, right, a Belarusian human rights lawyer working for Viasna. (29-JAN-08)

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The beginning of the campaign to establish decent incarceration conditions in the detention center in Akrestsina Street in Minsk has been announced by Anatol Liabedzka, the leader of the United Civil Party, who was recently released from Akrestsina after a 15-day sentence for participation in a protest rally of small businessmen on 10 January in Minsk.

Belarusian prisons breaking Belarusian laws
Anatol Liabedzka claims that this campaign is much needed because the requirements of the law establishing the conditions for the arrested are not fulfilled. “For example, according to the law, there should be a pay telephone in the jail, and every prisoner has the right to a telephone call. However, this does not happen in reality.” Secondly, Anatol stressed, according to the law, people who are kept at Akrestsina jail, have the right to a walk on the fresh air. Prisoners should be allowed to walk in the yard for at least an hour. “Again, this is not fulfilled. Prisoners also have the right to use bedclothes. In Akrestsina there are uncovered planks instead, and nothing else.”

-A violation of the Code
As Viasna lawyer Valiantsin Stefanovich stresses, such incarceration conditions contradict the Code of Procedure about Administrative Infringements of the Republic of Belarus. “We have registered cases when administrative infringers are kept together with people who have previous convictions, who had spent their previous sentences in jails. This is a violation of the Code, which says such categories of people are to be kept separately.”, — Stefanovich explains.

-These are remnants of the old Stalinist-Soviet system
Besides that, recently it has been prohibited to pass food parcels and many other things to the arrested. For example, the administration of Akrestsina jail often refuses to take warm clothes or blankets for the prisoners. According to Anatol Liabedzka, he personally delivered information about these and other violations of the legislation to the Akrestsina administration. Lawyer Valiantsin Stefanovich says, the Belarusian penitentiary system has not changed since the times of the USSR. “These are remnants of the old Stalinist-Soviet system, where a person was treated like trash, like dirt. Nobody spoke about any standards or individual sleeping places at that time,” the human rights activist believes.

Against inhuman treatment
The campaign organizers plan to send letters and petitions to appropriate state bodies of Belarus, with demands to obey the legislation in Akrestsina detention center. If the authorities do not react, Valianstin Stefanovich thinks, the campaigners can appeal to the international institutions. “There is a committee against torture and other inhuman kinds of treatment. Torture, this is how we can describe the conditions when people are kept in badly-heated cells, when it’s dreadfully cold. This is inhuman and cruel treatment. But we first need to try to solve the issues inside the country”, Stefanovich says.