Former candidate keeps appealing detention

Valery Karankevich, a former candidate for the Mahiliou Regional Council of Deputies in the Khotsimsk-based constituency No. 54 and a candidate for the district council of Khotsimsk in constituency No. 13, sent on January 29 a request for a personal appointment to the First Deputy Prosecutor General Belarus.

In his letter, Valery Karankevich says that he has repeatedly appealed to the prosecutors of different levels with complaints about the actions of the police department of Khotsimsk who illegally detained him at polling station No. 3 right before the counting of votes on March 23, 2014 and brought him to the district police department. The complaints to various authorities were not replied with satisfactory answers, including twice by the Prosecutor General’s Office.

Considering this, the former candidate asks the First Deputy Prosecutor General to receive him, so that he could provide new evidence of the illegality of his detention and further violations of his constitutional rights.

“On January 27, I visited the reception of the Prosecutor General’s Office in Minsk, where I wanted to sign up for a personal appointment with the Prosecutor General of the Republic of Belarus,” says Valery Karankevich. “There I was told that with my complaint I can make an appointment to his first deputy, by writing an application first. With the help of human rights defenders I wrote such a request and on 29 January sent it to the First Deputy Prosecutor General of the Republic of Belarus. This is already the fourteenth agency where I try to challenge the illegal detention and to seek justice. Although I have little hopes for a positive result, I’m going till the end."