Amnesty International comes out in defense of jailed activist Sasim :: Charter'97 :: News

The international human rights organization, Amnesty International, has begun a campaign in support of arrested opposition youth leader Nikita Sasim. Mr. Sasim was arrested on 14 March, five days before the presidential election in Belarus. He was seized by security forces in the street in Minsk and taken to a police station where, as a result of ill health, an ambulance was called. That night, Mr. Sasim was operated on for appendicitis and later transferred, handcuffed, to a hospital in Baranovichi, where he was chained to a bed and guarded by a policeman. A week later Mr. Sasim was transferred to the pre-trial detention center, where he has been since. On May 4, he will be tried on charges of draft evasion, for which he faces up to three years in prison.

Amnesty International will declare Mr. Sasim a prisoner of conscience if he is convicted, Aisha Jung, campaigner for Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine, told BelaPAN.

The organization urged people to send cards and letters of support and solidarity to Nikita Sasim in the days leading up to his trial.

At a peaceful demonstration in September 2005, Mr. Sasim tied his denim shirt to a flagpole after security forces had confiscated the banners and flags being used by the demonstrators. In response, he was beaten by the security forces so badly that he spent a week in hospital recovering. He was subsequently granted a deferment of military service due to the head injury that he had incurred as a result of the beating. Mr. Sasim`s peaceful act of defiance, which led to his beating, inspired the adoption of denim blue as a symbol of freedom and liberation by Belarusian civil society. The political opposition adopted the same color in the run up to the presidential election.