Stefanovich: Punishment cell is in fact a torture

Valyantsin Stefanovich, the deputy chairman of Viasna Human Rights Centre, said details about the case against political prisoners Mikita Likhavid.

Mikita Likhavid has recently been transferred to a penal colony in Navapolatsk. He was placed in a punishment cell on May 27 for the first time and recently thrown into it again for the fourth time. Formally, it a punishment for violations that prisoners can really get, but, Stefanovich thinks, it is “nothing else than an attempt of the authorities to apply more pressure on him as political prisoner”.

The human rights activist emphasized in an interview to Belsat: “We regard the conditions in the punishment cell as inhuman and, in fact, a torture.”

Stefanovich also said that Viasna Human Rights Centre and the International Human Rights Association prepared a notice of protest. The protest will be sent to different agencies, including the Presidential Administration and the Corrections Department of the Interior Ministry. Stefanovich sent the notice of protest to the chief of the colony, where Likhavid serves his term, to let him know that the international human rights community keeps an eye on his actions.

On March 29, the Partyzanski district court found activist of For Freedom movement Mikita Likhavid, 20, guilty in taking part in the so called mass disorder on December 19 and sentenced him to 3.5 years in a medium security penal colony. The Minsk City Court upheld the verdict. Likhavid does not admit himself guilty and says he will struggle to overturn the sentence.