Mikalay Dziadok found ”likely to take hostages”

The political prisoner has been transferred to cell-like premises for six months.

Mikalay Dziadok was convicted to four and a half years in a reformatory with a restricted regime after he had taken part in several anarchist rallies. Now the Shklou reformatory #17 claims he is “likely to take hostages”, Mikalay’s friend Aliaksandar Yarashevich told BelaPAN.

According to Aliaksandar, on 30 July Dziadok met with his lawyer. Yarashevich said: “In the reformatory, Dziadok has been kept in cell-like premises since the beginning of June. They introduced a six-day working week there, and Mikalay disagreed. For that, he lost the long meeting with his mother and wife planned for June, and then he was transferred to the cell-like premises for six months.”

Yarashevich remarked that Dziadok is alone in the cell-like premises: “He has received two reprimands for not keeping the cell clean. After he got the reprimands, he was put on a pro-active control, and a note appeared in his personal file saying that he is “likely to take hostages”. But I don’t really understand what hostages he can take when he is alone in a solitary cell.”

Dziadok himself is convinced that the administration of the reformatory treats him this way because he doesn’t admit his guilt and refuses to sign the appeal for pardon to the Belarusian president, Yarashevich said. On 27 May 2011 the Zavadski district court of Minsk convicted Mikalay Dzadok together with Igar Alinievich, Aliaksandar Frantskievich, Maksim Vietkin and Yaugen Sialivonchyk, who were tried in the same lawsuit. They all were found guilty of crimes according to part 2 article 339 of the Belarusian Criminal Code (malicious hooliganism) and part 2-part 3 of article 218 of the Criminal Code (intentional destruction or damaging of property). They were accused of attacks on buildings and arsons - the unauthorized anti-military rally at the Defense Ministry in 2009 in particular; throwing chemical fire bottles onto the Russian Embassy in Minsk and at the Center of isolation of criminals in Akrestsin Street in 2010. Oppositional organizations and human rights activists consider Mikalay Dziadok a political prisoner.