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Opposition activist Dashkevich denied meeting with lawyer in Vitsyebsk jail

The administration of a detention center in Vitsyebsk did not allow Zmitser Dashkevich to meet with his lawyer on September 12, Anastasiya Palazhanka, the girlfriend of the imprisoned leader of an opposition youth group called Malady Front, told BelaPAN.

Mr. Dashkevich was moved to the jail from Correctional Institution No. 13 in Hlybokaye earlier this month.

While denying Mr. Dashkevich a meeting with the lawyer, the administration explained that it had no documents proving that his fresh conviction had taken effect and that the opposition activist had not submitted an application for such a meeting.

"This is not true," Ms. Palazhanka said. "When Zmitser was held in the Hlybokaye prison he wrote two applications for a meeting with the lawyer, he sent one to the Vitsyebsk detention center by mail and asked for the other to be added to his personal file. Either these applications were destroyed or the chief of the Vitsyebsk jail told lies."

Mr. Dashkevich was barred from seeing his lawyer for two months when he was held in the same detention center in 2011, Ms. Palazhanka said.

In a closed-door trial held on August 28 in the Hlybokaye prison, the 31-year-old Dashkevich was found guilty of persistent violation of prison rules under Part One of the Criminal Code’s Article 411 and sentenced to a one-year prison term. The remaining four months of the previously imposed prison term were included in the new term.

On March 24, 2011, Mr. Dashkevich was sentenced to two years in a minimum-security correctional institution on a charge of "especially malicious hooliganism."

He was arrested in Minsk on December 18, 2010, on the eve of a scheduled large-scale post-election demonstration, for allegedly beating up two passers-by. Speaking during his trial, Mr. Dashkevich said that the incident was a provocation orchestrated by authorities and accused the two alleged victims of giving false testimony.

In September 2011, he refused an offer of freedom in exchange for asking Alyaksandr Lukashenka for a presidential pardon.