Andrei Bandarenka: there is no public control over penal colonies and pre-trial prisons
“We can draw many examples of torture
in the Belarusian prisons,” Andrei Bandarenka, a representative of the civil
association Platform, who had spent almost two years behind bars for
alleged swindle and was released because of “absence of corpus delicti”, stated
in his interview with BelSat.
Mr. Bandarenka is an initiator of the investigation into the case about the
suicide attempts among prisoners of the Hlybokaye penal colony. The prisoners
had to cut their veins to stop mockery on the part of the prison
administration. Yury Linha, a former convict, told about it. “I went through
it, I saw how they mock at prisoners,” said Andrei Bandarenka. “We can draw
many examples, when people were taken to prison in winter (in particular, it
concerns the Vitsebsk pre-trial prison) and were put in a cell with water,
where the temperature was below 0 Celsius. The people had to make some
movements all night – to drop curtseys, make press-ups, etc. - just not to
freeze there. Nether the prison administration, nor the supervising prosecutor
paid any reaction to appeals of such prisoners.
“I can quote the chief ideologist of the penal colony, who told me: “It's
easier for me to report about your death than about a dog's.” It reveals their
attention. They are proud of the closeness of their institutions. They solve
all kinds of issues with the supervising prosecutor – the complaints aren't let
out anywhere. As a result, the people become rightless,” said Mr. Bandarenka.
To his mind, the only solution is the establishment of public control. “We have
a good Criminal Code, and the Criminal-Executive Code is not bad. But we need
the control of civil over the penitentiary institutions. If the authorities
don't want to let civil organizations there – they can let the prisoners'
parents instead. As soon as the prison administrations will learn that there is
a real supervision organ above them – these violations will be stopped,”
emphasized the civil activist.
