Ferocity in Belarusian jails is widely spread :: Charter'97 :: News

Apart from two complaints of the accused from the Mazyr high security colony, a letter was passed to the remedial center “Viasna”. The prisoners asked to pass these papers to international remedial organizations to call them pay heed to the common state of prisoners in Belarus and in the Mazyr high security colony in particular.

The passed letters also contain information about the way prisoners are treated in the Belarusian jails. It should be mentioned that Belarus takes one of the first positions in the list of the European countries with the highest number of prisoners among the population.

The information comprised in the letters confirms that in the Mazyr high security colony inhabitants are treated with tortures and other gruesome and inhuman methods. Despite the demands of the Executive-Correctional Code of the Republic of Belarus, victims of these torments have no opportunity to address their claims to the Public Prosecutor’s Office or the Penalty Executions Committee.

As it follows from the letters, there is no appropriate surveillance conducted by the prosecutor’s office institutions that must exercise control over perseverance of lawfulness in the places of confinement. Moreover, the Penalty Executions Committee does not work properly, the conditions of custody are heinous, there is practically no medical aid for inmates. All this results in tortures of prisoners, mass hunger strikes of protest, deliberately injure themselves.