German Human Rights Advocates Call On Sheiman to Free Convicted Journalists :: Charter'97 :: News

“Amnesty International’s” German affiliate forwarded to the prosecutor general of Belarus Viktor Sheiman a letter with a call to urgently release the incarcerated journalists, sentenced for publishing critical essays about Alexander Lukashenko.

“Rosbalt” correspondent was told in the Belarusian human rights center “Vesna” that the chairwoman of the organization’s German branch Rita Vinand noted in the letter that the condemnation in the year 2002 of the Grodno journalists Nikolai Markevich and Pavel Mozheiko (newspaper “Pagonya”), as well as Viktor Ivashkevich from Minsk (“Rabochy”) “provoked indignation worldwide”. Trials over them, as deemed by the German human rights defenders, were an example of “human rights violations in Belarus”.
“These journalists are the prisoners of conscience and were condemned for their views,” – underscored Vinand. According to her, the sentenced journalists have to be doing “involuntary work in extremely harsh conditions hundreds of kilometers away from home”. Apart from their liberation, the woman also called on Sheiman to guarantee the freedom of speech in Belarus.