Prison administration allows Levonevsky to spend three days with his relatives :: Charter'97 :: News

The Domanovo prison administration in western Belarus allowed Valery Levonevsky, leader of market vendors` strike committee in Grodno sentenced for publicly insulting Aleksandr Lukashenko, to spend three days with his relatives from March 9 to 11.

The permission was granted after Mr. Levonevsky threatened the administration with a hunger strike, the jailed activist’s son, Vladimir, told BelaPAN.

He said his father’s health “stabilized” after the prison doctor had prescribed him a medicine for heartache that the activist was suffering since an earlier hunger strike. Mr. Levonevsky hopes that the prison administration would allow him to undergo clinical examination at a Minsk hospital next month.

The prison staff has denied Mr. Levonevsky access to his case file, laws and other documents. Amnesty International, which had declared Mr. Levonevsky a prisoner of conscience, mailed the activist its report, but he did not get it because the administration thought that the document defamed and dishonored the Belarusian ruler, Vladimir said.

Relatives expect the jailed activist’s lawyer, who intends to visit the prison shortly, to force the administration to respect his rights.

Mr. Levonevsky and Aleksandr Vasilyev, deputy head of the strike committee, were sentenced to two years in prison each on September 7, 2004.

In a dual trial, the judge ruled that a leaflet distributed by the two men prior to a May Day demonstration in the city defamed the Belarusian leader.

According to the ruling, the phrase, "Come and say no to someone`s holidaying in Austria, skiing there and being free-living at your expense," referred to Mr. Lukashenko.
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