Political prisoners forced to appeal for pardon

People are thrown to punishment isolation cells, denied meetings with families.

Political prisoner Mikola Dziadok is forced to submit the appeal, as he told his father Aliaksandar Dziadok over the phone on 21 April.

This way Mikola Dziadok proved A.Lukashenka’s words that only those political prisoners who ask for the leader’s mercy will be released.

Mikola Dzadok told his father that he had been transferred from the Mahiliou reformatory nr 15 to the Shklou reformatory, where Mikola Statkievich was once held. In the Mahiliou reformatory, Mikola Dziadok refused to submit the appeal twice, which made the prison administration and special services furious. Mikola Dziadok got five warnings, was denied meetings with his family, denied packages, and even spent five days in a punishment isolation cell.

Lieutenant-colonel Aliaksandar Litsvinski, who was seen among those who arrested young people in the Hall of the Minsk Tractor Factory, came to the reformatory twice.

Mikola Dziadok was in the Shklou reformatory nr 17 already on 7 April. His parents knew nothing of this; employees of reformatory nr 15 told them Mikola was on quarantine. Having arrived to the Shklou reformatory nr 17, Mikola Dziadok was almost immediately thrown to a punishment isolation cell for ten days. During this ten-day confinement, he “earned” three extra days. The political prisoner was denied the short meeting with his mother, which he had the right to since 16 April.

“I am convinced that warders force the political prisoners to appeal for pardon, fulfilling the orders from their leader. Today’s statements only prove that Lukashenka will not release a single political prisoner without the appeal for pardon,” Aliaksandar Dziadok told Belorusskiy Partizan.