Political prisoner Zmitser Dashkevich goes on hunger-strike
On 13 September Zmitser Dashkevich, a prominent political activist imprisoned for two years on fabricated charges, had a meeting with
his lawyer in penal colony #9 in Horki. The lawyer came there to take part in
the court proceedings concerning the change of the prison regime to Dashkevich
to keeping in a closed prison.
The lawyer was told that there will be no trial as there was no such case. Zmitser
Dashkevich didn’t know about the trial either. He talked with the lawyer over
the phone, and was prohibited to take a pen and paper for the meeting.
Dashkevich stated that he started a hunger-strike of protest and would keep it until
the implementation of the following demands by the prison administration:
1) provision of normal domestic conditions in the penal isolator to which he
was taken immediately after his release from a cell on 10 September, and where
he would be kept at least till 17 September. At present he is kept in the penal
isolator all day round. The temperature there is quite low, but he was
prohibited to take anything but his prison clothes there, so he cannot even
cover his body for the night.
2) the return of the Bible which was taken away by the prison administration.
The hunger-strike can inflict a serious harm to Zmitser’s health, as he has a
number of chronic illnesses.
The prisoner also said that he didn’t receive any mail correspondence including
letters from his lawyer. He was familiarized with the protocol of destruction
of the letters that hadn’t passed censorship – all of them had been burned.
Last Saturday Zmitser Dashkevich was proposed to sign the application to
Aliaksandr Lukashenka for granting him parole. The prisoner refused.
