News on the topic: detention conditions
08.05.2020 UN experts urge Belarus to release children and young people jailed for drug offences amid COVID-19 crisis
The soaring number of COVID-19 cases in Belarus should compel the Government to immediately release children and young people imprisoned for drug-related offences, UN human rights experts said on May 7.
08.02.2019 Degrading treatment of Anastasija Huseva reported to UN Special Rapporteur on Torture
The Human Rights Center Viasna addressed the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture with a request to investigate the acts of degrading treatment in a recent notorious case of anti-police graffiti.
17.07.2018 Human rights activists urge President to pardon political prisoner Mikhail Zhamchuzhny
A number of Belarusian human rights organizations have signed a petition to President Lukashenka, asking him to pardon political prisoner Mikhail Zhamchuzhny and release him from prison.
26.06.2018 Death row prisoner Ihar Hershankou goes on hunger strike
Ihar Hershankou, who was earlier sentenced to death, says he is beginning a hunger strike while on death row in Minsk’s detention center No. 1 to protest numerous violations of his right to correspondence, Viasna learned from the prisoner’s mother.
17.05.2018 Complete isolation: Mikhail Zhamchuzhny under unprecedented mail restrictions
For over a month, political prisoner Mikhail Zhamchuzhny has been unable to receive or send letters, according to a reliable source.
27.03.2018 Political prisoner Dzmitry Paliyenka transferred to prison hospital in Žodzina
Political prisoner Dzmitry Paliyenka, who is currently serving a 2-year politically motivated sentence in a penal colony in Babrujsk, has been transferred to a prison hospital in Žodzina, according to activist Maryna Nasenka.
14.03.2018 Authorities block access to political prisoners
The administration of penal colony No. 9 in Horki, Mahilioŭ region, has not allowed representatives of the regional Public Monitoring Commission to meet with political prisoner Mikhail Zhamchuzhny, who is currently held in the facility, mspring.online said.
13.03.2018 Amnesty International: Health concerns for prisoner of conscience Dzmitry Paliyenka
23-year old Belarusian activist, Dzmitry Paliyenka, is serving a two-year prison sentence for peacefully opposing restrictions on cyclists. He is being exposed to conditions that exacerbate his asthma and denied medical treatment for an untreated wound. He is a prisoner of conscience.
07.02.2018 Political prisoner Mikhail Zhamchuzhny beaten in prison, his life still at risk
Political prisoner Mikhail Zhamchuzhny, currently held in penal colony No. 9 in Horki, has been reportedly beaten by his cellmate. This news raises serious concerns and fears for the prisoner’s life.
25.09.2017 Bialiatski calls for respect for fundamental rights and freedoms of political prisoner Zhamchuzhny
Ales Bialiatski, head of the Human Rights Center "Viasna", has written to the Interior Ministry’s Department of Corrections urging to take immediate measures to ensure that political prisoner Mikhail Zhamchuzhny is held in conditions, which would guarantee his personal security and respect for fundamental rights and freedoms.
31.05.2017 Analytical review of detention conditions and treatement of persons convicted of involvement in peaceful protests in March 2017
The peaceful demonstrators sentenced to administrative detention in Minsk were held in conditions that are contrary to the state’s obligations enshrined in the Constitution and international treaties. Such conditions of detention are a form of cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment prohibited by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.
16.05.2017 Interior Ministry disputes moral suffering in prison death case
The Ministry of Internal Affairs has filed a cassation appeal to the Minsk City Court to challenge an earlier verdict by the Zavodski District Court, which ruled on March 23 that the mother and sister of Ihar Ptsichkin, inmate of Minsk prison No. 1 who died back in August 2013, should receive a total of BYN 30,000 in emotional distress damages.
26.04.2017 Human rights defender Tatsiana Reviaka fined 460 rubles
The Court of Minsk’s Centraĺny district completed today hearing the administrative charges against human rights activist Tatsiana Reviaka.
22.03.2017 Prison monitoring report: “We cannot help everyone, but manage to highlight violations in prisons”
The Human Rights Center "Viasna" presented yesterday its annual report on the results of monitoring places of detention in Belarus.
24.01.2017 More deaths in prison: who is to blame?
An inmate has died in penal colony No. 13 in the northern town of Hlybokaje, according to the Belarusian Documentation Center. On January 4, Valiantsin Pishchalau, 30, died in an ambulance that was called to take the patient to the hospital. According to the penitentiary’s chief, the prisoner died of “acute cardiovascular failure.”
