Sevyarynets didn’t get amnesty

Pavel Sevyarynets was offered to sign a statement that he cannot be amnestied.

Pavel Sevyarynets, one of the defendants of the criminal case about riots on December 19, 2010, co-chair of the organizing committee of the party "Belarusian Christian Democracy", has officially denied in amnesty, writes BelaPAN.

According to him, on July 26 he was acquainted with a paper and asked to sign a statement, that according to the paragraph 9 of the Law on amnesty, it cannot be applied to him. "What is paragraph 9 or article 9 I did not even specify. More likely, this is an article, according to which the amnesty does not apply to those convicted on the Article 342 of the Criminal Code", - said Sevyarynets.

Thus, he emphasized, "amnesty, which from the beginning has been declared non-political, for the first time of the application of amnesty in the history of Belarus in general, has acquired a clear political character".  "It became very clear that the amnesty was necessary to bargain with the West: the authorities, supposedly, will release the political prisoners under an amnesty, and the West will give them preferences. The West refused to bargain and has demonstrated its strict and clear position - to release political prisoners unconditionally and immediately. As a result, nobody was amnestied, and it seems that the authorities are not going to release anyone of the political prisoners", - said Sevyarynets.

Sevyarynets, who during the elections in 2010 led the election headquarters of the presidential candidate Vital Rymasheuski, on May 16 of the last year was sentenced by the court of Zavodsky district of Minsk to three years of imprisonment under Part 1, Art. 342 of the Criminal Code (organization and preparation of activities that violate public order, active participation in such activities).

He is serving the sentence in the commandant's office number 7 in the Kuplin village  of the Pruzhany district, Brest region.