28 March 2024, Thursday, 16:35
Support
the website
Sim Sim,
Charter 97!
Categories

Yury Rubtsou: Lukashenka released people who had been taken hostages by him

Yury Rubtsou: Lukashenka released people who had been taken hostages by him
YURY RUBTSOU
PHOTO: RADIO SVABODA

The former political prisoner learnt about his release while he was in the punishment isolation cell (ShIZO) of Babrujsk penal colony.

He told about that to journalists in the night of August 22-23, as he arrived to his home town Homel, Beloruskiye novosti informs.

As said by Rubtsou, out of 14 days in Babrujsk penal colony he spent 13 days in the punishment isolation cell. He was to be released on August 23, at 4.20 p.m., and on August 22 after the supper he was told to come to the administration, there he was told to collect things, and he was explained nothing. Then Rubtsou was taken outside the checkpoint, his bag was carried away, and he was offered to put on his own clothes. Only after that the activist was said he had been pardoned by Lukashenka’s decision.

Rubtsou is very surprised and displeased at being pardoned, as he believes he was to be declared not guilty.

“Lukashenka has made another weird trick, he has released people who had been taken hostages by him,” the former political prisoner said.

As said by Rubtsou, in correctional facilities people are treated abusively, as beasts, they are addressed to only “by shouting”, people have to take food in the same place where they go to the toilet.

The activist has also stated that different crackdown measures were used against him by the administration of the correctional facility, but his spirit was not broken by that.

Rubtsou told that before he was transferred to Babrusjk penal colony, while he stayed in the remand prison in Baranavichy, he created embroidery on his shirt, addressed to the officers of the remand prison. He embroidered on his back: “By convicting me, you are deprived of the right to resent beggarly wages.” And on his chest the phrase read: “Call it like it is.”

We remind that in October 2014 Yury Rubtsou was found guilty under Article 391 of the Criminal Code (insult of a judge). The court of Tsentralny district of Minsk sentenced him to a year and a half of restriction of freedom in an open-type correctional detention facility.

The new case against Homel-based activist was opened in March 2015 on charges relating Article 415 of the Criminal Code (“Evasion from serving the sentence”) after the political prisoner refused to work for a salary lower than $600 (according to the official statistics, it is an average salary across the country).

In May the court of Pruzhany district, Brest region, found Rubtsou guilty and sentenced him to two years of deprivation of freedom in a minimum-security penal colony, taking into account the term which had not been served by him. In July Brest regional court considered Rubtsou’s cassation appeal and upheld the sentence.

The Amnesty International recognized Rubtsou a prisoner of conscience.

Write your comment

Follow Charter97.org social media accounts