Babruisk authorities ban picket of solidarity with political prisoner

• 14.05.2014, 16:43

The Babruisk city authorities didn't allow holding a picket of solidarity with Yauhen Vaskovich.

Taisia Kabanchuk, a coordinator of the BCD's branch in Babruisk, told Viasna human rights centre that she received a reply from the city executive committee saying the local activists were not permitted to have a picket.

They planed to organise a picket to support Yauhen Vaskovich, who is under strong pressure from officers of Mahilou prison No. 4. He was transferred to a solitary confinement cell. There's information that he faced pressure from his cellmates too. BCD activists applied for holding pickets of solidarity in several towns, including Babruisk.

Yauhen Vaskovich, Artsiom Prakapenka and Pavel Syramolatau were tried together. Vaskovich was sentenced to 7 years of imprisonment for an attempt to set the doors of the KGB department in Babruisk on fire. He was thrown into a punishment cell several times. The political prisoner was transferred from a correctional facility to a prison in Mahilou as “persistent violator of prison rules”.