Mikita Likhavid: "I don't take part in this
The political prisoner writes that he is pressured in the penal colony to make him write petition for pardon.
“I would like to add that I do not want my name to become a bargaining chip on a game table. I mean, if anyone has an idea to release persons involved in the case of December 19, 2010 in exchange for “gingerbread”, I refuse to participate in this outrage. Let them release those who are guilty and live obeying the incarceration regime, and I do not sell my name and my honour for a possibility to eat gingerbread with condensed milk.” That’s what Mikita Likhavid, a political prisoner, writes to his mother.
On Friday Mikita Likhavid’s mother received a letter from him. He is serving the sentence in Navapolatsk penal colony #10. “According to Mikita’s words, I have come to a conclusion (But that’s just my guess) that the general tendency, when “Decembrists” are demanded to sign all kinds of appeals, has reached Navapolatsk colony. Mikita writes: “I am not going to take aprt in this outrage,” hinting on the fact that the regime wants to hit the jackpot with the use of political prisoners’ appeals for pardon,” Alena Likhavid said to Belarusian Partisan.
“I am kept here as in a storehouse, and the administration just watching for nothing to disappear. In order to be released, I do not need benevolence of the chief, but a ruling of the court. The system is simple here: when they will have a document, they will release me, open the gate and I will be free wherever I want. And if there is no document, I cannot. And there is no difference, where I am kept, in the penal colony or in the punishment isolation cell, I am just behind the bars!” Mikita Likhavid writes.
“I came to the square because I want to live in a free country. I want only decent people to work as policemen, whereas there are almost no decent policemen in our times. As a rule, they are mostly “the old guard”, they will become pensioners soon, and they do not have high ranks. There are not many officers, and especially senior officers, who deserve their ranks. I want workers to be proud of the things they produce, I want young people not to ruin themselves by drinking by the age of 30. That’s why I took part in the rally on the Square and I am ready to suffer for my ideas, I am ready to suffer for people (no matter who they are: workers, businessmen or prisoners who spend half of their lives behind the bars), and for the period of time which would be needed. It’s for their right to have a possibility to live well and be proud for their country and the place they live, and not to flee abroad looking for a better place,” Mikita Likhavid writes.
The mother of the political prisoner Alena has informed that her son was placed into a “PKT” (“a cell-type room”) for 3 months. Those who violated prison rules many times and who do not want to mend their ways are placed there. As told by Alena Likhavid, on Thursday-Friday Dar’ya Lipkina, a lawyer, will go to the colony, and she would be probable able to learn more about the situation of the political prisoner.
As said by the woman, Mikita Likhavid now has problems with his stomach and intestine. After consultations with doctors his health seemed to improve, but amid the conditions when Mikita Likhavid actually do not leave SHIZO (a punishment isolation cell), problems are inevitable. “Even under the Penal Code inmates of the punishment isolation cell receive reduced nutrition standards,” Alena Likhavid said.
