Aliaksandr Malchanau: I wanted a change (Video)

A new video from the “Chronicle of the judgment time” series, devoted to a political prisoner from Barysau, was recently posted online.

A Zubr activist Aliksandr Malchanau is a working fellow with believes and strength of a true fighter, the human rights center Viasna reports.

He was born on 22 June 1988 in Barysau where he has lived whole his life. He studied in Barysau’s school number 22. In the first half of the 2000s he was an activist of the youth movement Zubr. Exactly at the time the guy’s political activity became the reason for the constant attention police paid to him. For the first time Malchanau was detained in Barysau on 6 January 2011 in the framework of the investigation of the case of the post-election mass disturbances. Aliaksandr was double accused: first – of participating in mass disturbances; second – of state symbols offense during the action. He was taken to the KGB prison.

On 2 March 2011 he was sentenced to three years in high security prison by the Minsk Frunze district’s court. He served the sentence in the penal colony number 15 in Mogilev, where he was released from on 14 September 2011 on the grounds of a pardon signed by Lukashenka. He was one of a number of political prisoners released that day.

However, soon another suit was filed against him. In November 2011 he was arrested in Barysau for the second time and put into an isolation ward. This time the oppositionist was accused of stealing scrap metal. Aliaksandr could not find a job as after a political trial they would not accept him anywhere. So he made money for himself and his retired parents by collecting metal scrap. He says that residents used to come for metal industrial waste to the territory of an enterprise which was not guarded. On 9 April 2012 he was sentenced to 1.5 years in a high security penal colony.