Authorities are afraid to admit human rights defenders to the Salihorsk detention center
According to the
human rights defender Leanid Markhotka, the Head
of the Salihorsk District Police Department
Aliaksandr Astreika did not allow
representatives of the Belarusian Helsinki Committee to visit the
local detention isolator.
Back
on 29 July the human rights activists filed
a letter to the head of the Salihorsk police, asking to admit the BHC
representatives in the Salihorsk detention
center so that they could
prepare an alternative report on the implementation of the
recommendations of the
UN Universal Periodic Review by Belarus.
Aliaksandr Astreika promised to take a
decision within three days, but delayed
the fulfillment of his promise for more
than a week.
“Though it is not a
violation according to the Law “On Applications of Citizens”, but
if such high officials cannot keep their word,
then it is not comme il faut,” commented
Mr. Markhotka.
Meanwhile,
Mr. Astreika violated another provision of the aforementioned law by
the failure to explain the order of appealing against his answer.
Moreover, the human rights defenders say that his answer is
meaningless.
“Our officials have
developed the habit of mindless copypasting
of large excerpts from laws in their answers instead of giving
response on the merits”, said
Leanid Markhotka. “Our references to the concrete articles of the
Laws “On "On Information" and
"On Public Associations" were simply
ignored, that's
why we are going to appeal this answer.”
The
human rights activist does not rule
out that the reluctance to allow
independent observers to the Salihorsk
detention center can ensue from the failure
to implement the
actual legal standards of prison
conditions. In such circumstances, the
public can reasonably question the effectiveness of the repairs
of the detention center, announced this
spring.
Bear in mind that the local
activists repeatedly complained about the
inhumane conditions for prisoners in the local detention center. In
the past year, the activist of the
Salihorsk branch of the “Young Front”
Ivan Shyla filed a special appeal to the
Minister of Internal Affairs due to the
failure of the administration of the detention center to implement
the legal standards of the treatment of prisoners, which resulted in
the death of a young Salihorsk dweller as a result of a trauma,
incurred in the detention center.
