Vasil Parfiankou released from jail
Vasil Parfiankou. Photo by euroradio.fm.
Political prisoner Vasil Parfiankou has been released.
The staff of the correctional facility in Horki, where the activist served his term, disrupted the meeting of Vasil Parfiankou and those who came to welcome his outside prison. Prison officers took him to the railway station in a car and made sure that he took the train to Orsha. The former political prisoner is at the railway station in Orsha, waiting for journalists and activists to come from Horki.
Charter97.org learned it from Aliaksandr Makayeu, one of the leaders of small businessmen.
“Prison officers were afraid that people would meet me outside prison. They took me to the central railway station in Horki and ordered to get into the train. They escorted me to Orsha,” Vasil Parfiankou says.
The former political prisoner thanked all those who supported his, wrote letters and struggled for his release. He says he does not plan to give up his political activity.
“Nothing has changed in the country. It became only worse. Pressure on dissidents has increased. New criminal cases against Yury Rubtsou and Mikalai Dziadok show it. I do not feel that I am at freedom. I will continue to struggle,” he said.
Vasil Parfiankou has served his third jail term since 2010. The activist was sentenced to four years in a high security correctional facility in the case of “mass disorders” in Nezalezhnasts Square in Minsk, when tens of thousands of Belarusians took to streets to protests about the rigged results of the presidential elections. He was pardoned in August 2011.
The activist was persecuted by the authorities after the release, according to human rights defenders. On May 29, Minsk's Pershamaiski district court found Parfiankou guilty of violating the rules of preventive supervision and sentenced him to 6 months of detention.
On July 12, 2013, Vasil was charged with violating article 421 of the Criminal Code (violation of the preventive supervision rules). The case was sent to a court, but no trial took place, because another method of influence was found. Vasil Parfiankou was sentenced to a short term in custody in absentia and then sent to a rehabilitation centre in Svetlahorsk on September 21, 2013.
Human rights defenders figured out that a decision on sending Parfiankou to the rehab centre was taken by the Pershamaiski district court on September 4.
On December 5, 2013, he was put under arrest for violating the preventive supervision rules (article 421) and sentenced to a year in a high security correctional facility.
