"Condemned to Be Free" – a short video about political prisoner Ihar Alinevich

Ihar Alinevich was detained by enforcers in mufti on 28 November 2010 in Moscow, taken into an unknown direction and only in a day his ending up in the KGB jail.

On 27 May 2011 the Zavadski District Court of Minsk sentenced the activist to eight years in high security prison. He was accused of hooliganism by a group of people (Article 339, part 2 of the Criminal Code of Belarus) and a large scale property damage in a dangerous way (parts 2 and 3 of the article 218 of the Criminal Code).

Human rights organizations note that the trial of Ihar Alinevich and other people involved in the anarchist case was accompanied with gross of violations, that is why the prisoners of that case cannot be considered as convicted in a legal way. Thus, Mr. Alienevich’s detention in Moscow went with violations of the standard procedures, including the procedure of extradition of Belarusian citizens from Russian Federation. During the detention he was deprived of a possibility to receive a lawyer’s assistance and thus the possibility to appeal for the detention. In the course of the preliminary investigation psychological pressure and tortures were applied to the accused. During the court’s proceedings the principle of equality of the parties was not observed regarding the submission of evidence. The court often did not satisfy valid motions of the defense, including the ones regarding questioning of witnesses, which influenced the impartiality of the case.

During the time spent at the KGB jail Ihar and other prisoners underwent tortures. Ihar was repeatedly suggested to work for the authorities as a hacker but he flatly refused.