Aliaksei Stuk: penalties to Bialiatski and Statkevich match their crimes

"There are some shortcomings in the Belarusian prison, but they don't exceed the framework of the Criminal-Executive Code and other legal acts", stated the deputy Prosecutor General Aliaksei Stuk.

According to him, officers of the prosecutor's office regularly check the incarceration conditions in the Belarusian prisons.

"There's a good form of work nowadays: the head of the penal department of the General Procuracy visits prisons together with the head of the penal department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and I assure you that they don't walk there with joined hands. Such visits end with concrete acts of prosecutorial supervision, on our part, and concrete measures taken by the head of the department to put everything in order, up to the dismissal of duty officials at state agencies from their positions," said the officials.

What concerns political prisoners, A. Stuk considers them to be the same as all others: "Doubtlessly, they are kept there in the regimes of security which correspond to their crimes. Statkevich admitted a number of violations which haven't been appealed, and therefore he was transferred to the prison #4 in Mahiliou. What concerns Bialiatski, he is kept in the penal colony #2 in Babruisk, and also has a number of violations. The conditions of their penalty are the same as that of all other prisoners."

At the same time, human rights defenders point at a discriminative attitude of the prison administrations to political prisoners, issuing them with groundless reprimands which result in the prohibition on receiving food parcels, meetings with relatives or even temporary transfer to penal cells.