Salihorsk human rights defenders ask to inspect detention center

Salihorsk members of the Belarusian Helsinki Committee, Leanid Markhotka and Aliaksei Varabyou met with the chief of the district police department Aliaksandr Astreika to discuss the possibility of admission to the town detention center.

The Belarusian Helsinki Committee as part of its statutory activities is preparing an alternative report on the implementation by Belarus of the recommendations under the UN Universal Periodic Review. One of the areas of the Review deals with the treatment of people held in places of detention, which include, for example, detention centers, penal colonies and prisons.

According to the human rights defenders, Salihorsk detention center was reconstructed this spring. IN order to adequately reflect the official efforts to improve the confinement conditions in the detention center and implementation of the relevant requirements of national legislation and international standards in the results of monitoring, the Belarusian Helsinki Committee appealed to the leadership of Salihorsk police department for admission of its representatives to the detention center.

“We consider it necessary that the detention center provided conditions satisfactory for both temporary inmates and for employees, who have been there for years and may also suffer from poor conditions in the premises,” says the statement passed by local human rights defenders to the police chief.

According to the BHC representative Leanid Markhotka, Mr. Astreika could not immediately provide an answer to the question, but promised to consider it on the merits and within three days to take a decision on the possibility of admission of human rights defenders to the detention center of Salihorsk.