Political Prisoner Valery Levaneuski Released :: Charter'97 :: News

The leader of entrepreneurs Valery Levaneuski has been released from Ivatsevichy colony after two years of imprisonment. The authorities have made everything possible so that family and colleagues could not meet him. Today at 7 a.m. workers of the colony took Valery Levaneuski from Ivatsevichy to another district, in Slonim, and left him at a railway station. The entrepreneur managed to call his family, and now Valery Levaneuski is accompanied by friends and family and goes to Hrodna.

On September 7, 2004 court of the Lenin district of Hrodna sentenced Valery Levaneuski, the chairman of the All-National Strike Committee of Vendors, guilty of public slander of Belarusian President connected with a grave crime (Article 368 Part 2 of the Criminal Code), and sentenced them to two years of imprisonment in minimum-security correctional labour facility. It was written in the verdict that the sentence “Come and say that you are against somebody’s skiing in Austria at your expense”, printed in leaflets, contains insult of honour and dignity of the president of the Republic of Belarus. Leaflets were disseminated on the eve of a protest rally of vendors.

In Prions Valery Levanesuki continued hi struggle for his rights and the rights of other prisoners. The entrepreneur many times went on long hunger strikes. He was placed into an isolation cell for that, was unjustly punished by the colony administration. Levaneuski was forbidden to meet with his family and buy food in the shop of the prisons. In December 2005 when his father died Levaneuski was not allowed to leave the colony to take part in funeral service.

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