English

Nyaklyayew links non-custodial sentences to public solidarity

Former presidential candidate Uladzimir Nyaklyayew told reporters near the Frunzenski District Court in Minsk on Friday that the non-custodial sentences for him and his five co-defendants had been due solely to civil and international solidarity.

"Everybody understands why we have been freed," Mr. Nyaklyayew said. "Not because the court is good or the authorities plan democratization. This is a result of human and international solidarity."

"I want to say that your support, the support of the entire world reached me through the jail walls," Mr. Nyaklyayew said. "I swear, it helped me to live."

Mr. Nyaklyayew said that his immediate goal was to secure the release of all political prisoners in Belarus. "Not only all innocent prisoners but all Belarus should leave prison," he noted.

Mr. Nyaklyayew stressed that nothing but the release of all prisoners of conscience would be accepted, and that there would be no "bargaining with the authorities."

He expressed gratitude to the European Union and the United States, noting that he would still be in the KGB's detention center if it had not been for their support.

On Friday, a judge of the Frunzenski District Court gave a suspended two-year prison sentence with two years' probation to Mr. Nyaklyayew and a suspended two-year prison sentence to another former presidential candidate, Vital Rymashewski.

Judge Zhanna Zhukowskaya found Messrs. Nyaklyayew and Rymashewski guilty of the "organization and preparation of actions that are in gross violation of public order or active participation in them" in connection with a post-election protest staged in Minsk on December 19, 2010. //BelaPAN