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Prison administration refuses to accept medicines for Ales Byalyatski

The administration of Correctional Institution No. 2 in Babruysk, Mahilyow region, has refused to accept a parcel containing medicines for human rights defender Ales Byalyatski, BelaPAN said. 

"For some reason, the maximum weight of such a parcel has been reduced from two to one kilogram for Ales," his wife, Natallya Pinchuk, told BelaPAN. "I talked to relatives of other political prisoners, but none of have had such problems. Ales drew up a list of medicines and vitamins that had been approved by the chief of the prison's medical unit, but I sent to him only half of what I otherwise would have."

However, even the one-kilogram parcel was delivered back to Ms. Pinchuk.

"It was written on the envelope that the letter had not been sent on time, whatever this means," she said. "I sent the parcel to the correctional institution again. They are leaving him without medicines or vitamins until the winter."

Ms. Pinchuk noted that her husband had been given several reprimands and the status of a persistent violator of prison rules. Although Ales does not write that he is under pressure to apply for a presidential pardon, he has probably been told to do this, judging by what happens to other political prisoners, she said. He apparently refused to ask Alyaksandr Lukashenka for a pardon, and the prison administration now does everything to make his life as difficult as possible, she said.

Ales Byalyatski, chairman of a Belarusian human rights organization called Vyasna (Spring) and vice president of the International Federation for Human Rights, was arrested in Minsk on August 4, 2011.

On November 24, 2011, he was sentenced to four and a half years in prison on a charge of large-scale tax evasion. The charge stemmed from information about his bank accounts abroad, which was thoughtlessly provided by authorities in Lithuania and Poland under interstate legal assistance agreements. During his trial, Mr. Byalyatski insisted that the money transferred by various foundations to his bank accounts abroad had been intended to finance Vyasna's activities and therefore could not be viewed as his income subject to taxation.