Night search held at Mikalai Statkevich's prison cell

The prisoner's wife, Maryna Adamovich, has received two letters from him after a long break. From these letters she found about the new attempts of exercising pressure on Mikalai Statkevich.

In particular, she says that a long night search, lasting for more than 90 minutes, was held in his cell in the night time, with participation of high rank oficers. “I cannot but consider it as pressurization, the more that before this he tried to solve the problem of the prison meals, whose quality had rapidly decreased about two months ago.

Statkevich is apolitical prisoners in Belarus, though the official Minsk refuses the existence of any political prisoners at all. He was a presidential candidate during the elections of 2010, who was charged with organizing a “mass riot” for participating in the essentially peaceful post-electioon protests against the rigged elections and sentenced to six years of imprisonment. Last year, the regime for Mr. Statkevich was toughened – he was transferred from Shklou penitentiary to Mahiliou cell-type prison facility. He still refuses to write a clemency petition for Aliaksandr Lukashenka, which is an unofficial pre-requisite for the release of any of the remaining political prisoners held by the official Minsk.