Les anarchistes Biélorusses sont libérés!!!

[meluzine]

C'est avec une joie immense que je vous annopnce que Lukachencko à gracié plusieurs prisonniers politiques dont Alinevitch, Dziadok et Prakapenko.
Vive la liberté!!
http://abc-belarus.org/?p=6306&lang=en

[charles]

mortel !!!!!

quelqu'un-e sait-il quelle manipulation politique il y a derrière cette soudaine décision ? Lukachenko a envie de se rendre présentable vis-à-vis de qui en ce moment...?

[meluzine]

Luka veux se rendre présentable au yeux de Bruxelles puisqu'il a fait médiateur lors des accords de Minsk entre l'Ukraine, la Russie et l'Union Européenne. Il fait aussi le chien chien de Putin. Mais surtout il veux se rendre crédible aux yeux des électeurs puisque de nouvelles élections présidentielles auront lieu en Octobre.
Du coup les médias d'opposition parlent de boycott et de ras le bol des gens conscients de la situation mais aussi de ceux qui soutiennent Lukachenko.

A ce propos une interview de Ihar Alinevitch (En anglais sorry.) :

Ihar Alinevich: Boycott is only right thing to do for Belarusians

Empty polling stations would be the most illustrative manifestation of the will of the people.
It is an opinion of the former political prisoner, the leader of Belarusian anarchists Ihar Alinevich, who was released from a penal colony yesterday. He has spent almost 5 years there.
So far Ihal Alinevich is withdrawing comments and giving interviews, he wants to spend more time with his family; however he has made an exception for charter97.org, and answered questions of the editor-in-chief Natallia Radzina.

- Ihar, people could not meet you yesterday. It was informed that you were brought directly into your Minsk flat. It is obvious that the authorities feared repetition of situation when Mikalai Statkevich was met at the bus station by a great number of people. How were you released?

- This information is not completely accurate, I was brought to the bus station, and I missed everyone by some miracle. I walked past a group of people on the way just a few minutes earlier. The release happens once in a lifetime, though not everyone has, and it is hard to plan it to happen in the “right” way. The most important thing is that I am at home, and I am heartily glad about it.

Yesterday operatives came to me at 4 p.m. and said collect all my belongings and go to the exit control. A few days before that I was hinted that I was to be placed to the ward-type room, that is why I had my bags packed already, and everyone was sure that I was to be taken to the internal prison.

And later they held a full search, made a list of my things and took me to the exit point. There I was read the decree of pardon, given my passport, the certificate of release, money. A minibus with officers was waiting for me already, they took me directly to the bus station of Vitsebsk and were waiting until the bus arrived, and I took the bus. That’s all.

- Mikalai Statkevich (Opposant politique libéré le même jour.) believes that the release of political prisoners is related to the fact that Lukashenka had run out of money. Do you agree with him?

- We won’t ever learn the ins and outs, as our society is not transparent, and we do not know how decisions are taken. There is an economic version, there is a geopolitical version.

Now the decisions are taken which could not have been taken for 5 years, while the situation was obvious. It means there have been significant reasons.

- Before the release the incarceration conditions were harshened for you, you were placed in a punishment cell. Why did it happen? Where they demanding something from you?

- In the IK-3 (penal colony) I have never been offered to write a petition for pardon directly, however they hinted at that indirectly. Every two months I was placed in the punishment isolation cell, and it was predictable for all prisoners.

Every two months I was getting ready for that I advance: I finished to read important letters, finished to read books. As compared to the previous colony, these conditions were considerably harsher.

- Recently you sent a letter, where you compared conditions in correctional facilities and prisons in Belarus to GULAG. What examples of cruel treatment of people shocked you most of all, and what have you experienced yourself?

- Today the penitentiary system no longer uses obvious methods of repression: they try not beat up people, but absence of direct violence is compensated by thousands of other methods of abuse. Taken together, it produces even stronger effect than direct violence.

In particular, people are deprived of meetings with close relatives. In itself it is harder than violence.

Another example: prisoners go to do sports, and every person is to take shower after that, but one could be prohibited to do so, as it is “goes against” the daily routine. A prisoner could be prohibited to boil water by a water heater, for him to wash with warm water. It is done to make a person feel a creature deprived of absolutely all rights.

- Nevertheless, in 2010 in the KGB remand prison the authorities ordered to use tortures against political prisoners. To your mind, why did it happen?

- In 2010 the regime faced a task to crush the will of political prisoners as soon as possible, for them to give a confession. And accordingly, more and more cruel and refined methods were used against those who had not been “crushed”.

I described all that in detail in my book “I am going to Magadan.” It is already a mental torture when a person is not allowed to switch off the light during the sleep. On the contrary, additional light was switched on at night.

Just a few days in such conditions have a rather strong impact on a person, and absence of correspondence with relatives and friends produces an effect of informational vacuum – a person starts to live on wild guesses and internal fears. At this moment anything at all could be done with such a person.

Besides, there was a practice of placing into the cell persistent offenders who cooperate with administration. Having a long experience in penal facilities, they could easily manipulate people, play off inmates against others, intimidate them.

There was direct physical impact as well. As for me personally, I was beaten up three times. And when I was in the correctional facility, I met people who had been in the KGB remand prison (Amerikanka), and learnt from them that beating had taken place. Exactly those who had not been influenced by other methods, where beaten.

- How would you comment on the fact that today the Belarusian authorities with the help of pseudo independent organisations, even with participation of a former political prisoner, are trying to persuade the West that the Belarusian prison system meets some standards?

- I do not know what is the reason for the desire of the Department of Corrections to whitewash itself, as until that moment they were feeling fine with all the “notoriety” they had, that is, with a person’s total rightlessness in the penal system.

It is possible that the government is trying to carry out a complete ‘re-branding” of its institutions, including the penal system. However this “rebranding” has a cosmetic nature. The arguments of May 2015 at the session of the Human Rights Committee are absolutely superficial and contradict reality. In general, they are void for people who are imprisoned.

I do not know how exactly they have influenced Mikita Likhavid from the NGO Platforma, but it is obvious to me that in December 2014 when they visited IK-3, he tried to act in the way so that prisoners, who had been serving the term in IK-10 with him, would not recognize him. And correspondingly, Likhavid realized what he was doing, what they were going to do, and understood that the public would not buy it, take it as the truth. In other words, it was an intended lie.

- You have written a very honest book about your stay in the KGB remand prison “I am going to Magadan”. As a former inmate of “Amerikanka”, I can stand by every word. Could you lift the veil: how the book had been created, and how had you managed to put it into print?

- I was writing this book in the first few months of my stay in the penal colony. At that moment the administration did not know how to treat anarchists, a a number of organisations had not given us the status of political prisoners. And consequently, there was less attention to me, then later.

It allowed me to write a book over the period of 7 months, and to pass it outside the prison with a prisoner who was released. It was simply a luck that during release the search process was probably formal, and the book was out at all.

- You was imprisoned before one Lukashenka’s “elections” and released in the run-up to the next one. Today the majority of Belarusians does not find any sense in participation in an obvious farce, and ignore another electoral show of Lukashenka. Do you support boycott?

- If we compare elections under this regime, then even if we compare them with generally accepted standards, it is an obvious farce. Due to participation of all kind of pro-regime and pseudo-oppositional structures, this decoration gives dynamic character to the entire action.

However I do not know a single clear-headed person in Belarus who do not understand what is going on. Even adherents of Lukashenka’s regime understand that there is no election, that it is a farce.

Boycott is the only right thing a Belarusian could do towards this system. Empty polling stations would be the most illustrative manifestation of the will of the people.

- On what conditions have you been released? What are your plans for the near future?

- For the moment no conditions have been announced. So let’s wait and see.

In the near future I am going to devote all my attention to the loved ones: my parents, relatives and friends.

Source : http://charter97.org/en/news/2015/8/23/165811/
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Interview de Mikalai Dziadok :

Mikalai Dzyadok: Special services stand behind back of every jailer

Mikalai Dzyadok, a political prisoner, who has celebrated his 27th birthday at liberty today, is grateful to Belarusians for solidarity.
Mikalai Dzyadok said so in an interview to charter97.org website.

- Today you have a double holiday – your birthday and the day of release. The editorial office of charter97.org congratulates you on these two events. How was your release taking place? When did you learn about it?

- Many thanks for congratulations! The release was taking place like this: a door of the cell opened unexpectedly, two officers entered and told me to pack my belongings and go, and they didn’t explain where and why. I was taken to the gate of the colony, and only then I was told that I was coming home. All my things were returned to me, and I was taken outside the gates of the penal colony.

There I was met by three men looking quite suspicious, they handed me into a car, drove me to Vorsha, and gave me a ticket for a train there. From the train I called my family, and at platform I was met by relatives, comrades and human rights activists.

- What was the reason for your release?

- To my mind, there could be no other reason but a combination of such factors as economic and diplomatic pressure of the European Union on the Belarusian authorities. I think that the economic crisis is the reason why we have been released. Another additional thing was that Europe exerted pressure on Lukashenka concerning existence of political prisoners. But the downfall of the economy is the primarily factor.

- It is known that during your detention unprecedented pressure was put on you, considering the number of days spent in the penal isolation cell and incarceration conditions in the ward-type rooms. Would you characterize the actions of the administration as using tortures against prisoners?

- It depends on how wide you treat the notion of tortures. If by tortures you mean inhuman, humiliating treatment, then yes, they were used. I was often placed to rather harsh conditions. There were cells with too many people, cold cells, and cells where it was impossible to sleep.

In general attitude of jailers is dictated from the above. Special services stand behind the back of every jailer, and they order how to work with any given political prisoner and to what extent exert pressure on each of them.

For any penal facility or prison a political prisoner is as a thorn in the side, he is to invite highest attention, and administrative pressure is to be put on him in the first place.

As for tortures: it was either placing in special conditions, or psychological pressure.

- In which way psychological pressure was applied?

- These were mostly petty provocations. Either verbal, or with the help of other prisoners who were loyal to the administration. There was pitting people against each other, inciting conflict situations between prisoners, limiting correspondence, withdrawing of letters or excessive censoring of letters.

- Yury Rubtsou evaluated release of political prisoners before the “elections” as bargaining by hostages. What is your attitude to the upcoming so-called “presidential elections”?

- The institute of presidency as such is not quite democratic for me. And in the conditions of Belarus even this “weak” democratic procedure is carried out without observing formal norms and rules. It is devaluing the “elections” in the eyes of the majority of people in Belarus even more. Very many people do not believe in them.

- What would you like to say to the people who had been fighting for your liberation?

- All the time while I was behind the bars I felt this constant support, which didn’t stop even for a day. With great joy I met the news about every, even the littlest rally of solidarity, about every article in mass media. Every letter, every postcard, especially from people whom I do not know, brought great joy to me.

I had an impression that thousands of people show solidarity with me. I extend a big thank to them, that’s all I can. In a great measure thanks to their support I have held out, was not cracked in those difficult conditions and keep up my faith in what I am doing. Your support meant a lot to me, it cannot be over-emphasized.

We remind that Mikalai Dzyadok has served 4.5 years of imprisonment for alleged hooliganism against official buildings and his release was to take place on March 3, 2015. However on February 26 the court of Leninski district of Mahilyou found him guilty under Article 411 of the Criminal Code “malicious insubordination to demands of the administration” and punished him by 1 year in a penal colony. On April 30 the court of cassation upheld the verdict.

Source : http://charter97.org/en/news/2015/8/24/165931/