Supreme Court rejects appeal by political prisoner Ihar Alinevich

According to Valiantsina Alinevich, the mother of political prisoner Ihar Alinevich, she has received a letter from her son, which said that the Supreme Court has dismissed the political prisoner’s supervisory appeal.

“It’s been almost twenty days and on 23 July a letter came. Ihar says that a supervisory appeal to the Supreme Court, which he had earlier submitted, received a negative answer. A copy of the decision was not given to him, and since 2013, as it turns out, the prisoners cannot possess codes when in prison.

On July 9, Ihar was placed in the punishment cell, but does he not say for what reason. He son read some articles, including about the improvement of prison conditions in Belarus (monitoring reports by Platforma Innovation - Ed.). So even those who have been in prison for a long time say that any improvements are out of the question, while the conditions are only getting worse and worse.

In addition, they have introduced new bans on a number of foodstuffs in the parcels, including bananas, berries, spices, dried fruits, and honey. But he is little worried about this, because it will soon be a year since Ihar was deprived of any parcels and visits. This suggests that he is facing tougher attitude,” says Mrs. Alinevich.

In turn, Pavel Sapelka, a lawyer of the Human Rights Center "Viasna", stresses the following facts:

“Under a general rule, the prisoner is permitted to have a maximum of five books and magazines, excluding textbooks required for obtaining a secondary, technical and vocational education and training. Other books and magazines are stored in the prison library or sent to his relatives.

The ban on possessing legal literature, of course, violates the rights of the convict, although technically it can be derived from these standards.”

In accordance with the Criminal Executive Code, the authorities and officials who receive proposals, applications and complaints shall consider them within the period established by the laws of the Republic of Belarus and report on their decisions to the convicts through the administration of institutions executing punishment. Meanwhile, the internal prison rules provide that the decisions should be announced to the prisoner with written acknowledgement of receipt no later than in the three-day period.

That is, the prison administration is formally entitled with the right to only announce the contents of the decisions. The only thing the prisoner can do is demand permission to copy these answers by hand. This situation violates the rights of prisoners to be protected, because the use of the full texts of decisions is essential for further correspondence and appeal procedures.”