Pavel Seviarynets Is Prohibited to Visit Vitsebsk

The young leader Pavel Seviarynets is not granted a few days of leave to Vitsebsk for 1,5 months. The Charter’97 press-center was informed about that by his mother Tatsiana Seviarynets. The youth leader is serving a two-year sentence, or so-called corrective labor, in the village of Sitna, Polatsk district, Vitsebsk region for organizing peaceful protest rallies against rigged results of the referendum and parliamentary elections in autumn 2004. According to the law, prisoners in a collective labor facility have a right to go home for a few days every month.

As said by T.Seviarynets, it is possible that Pavel Seviarynets won’t be allowed to go to Vitsebsk before the elections to local Soviets, which are to be held on 14 January 2007. ‘They are particularly afraid of presence of active people during the election, that’s why such a ‘present’ for Pavel’s birthday is possible,” Mrs. Seviarynets says. On 30 December Pavel Seviarynets turns 30.