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Lawyer Julia Levanchul told a press conference in the Seimas on Tuesday that “the Belarusian authorities are deliberately violating the health rights of political detainees and prisoners using them as pressure.
“Belarus has a very acute problem with those detained and convicted for political reasons, in principle they do not receive any medical help. Today, two problem areas can be identified: one is the deliberate distribution of COVID-19 among the detainees, namely , the placement of political prisoners in cells containing coronavirus patients for infection. According to statistics, more than 60 percent. people leaving their pretrial detention facilities develop COVID-19, “said Levanchul.
“The next moment, people sentenced to prison do not receive medical care or help in prisons. It is known that the condition of people suffering from cancer diseases is progressing, because medical assistance is not provided,” said a representative of the Belarusian opposition .
Social Democrat Dovilė Šakalienė, who organized the press conference, assessed the situation and said that in neighboring Belarus “things are happening that are difficult to understand with common sense.”
“COVID-19 is a really terrible infection, in Lithuania, a medium-sized city died from a coronavirus infection, and deliberately infecting people in cells while maintaining this infection is the least sadistic,” said D. Šakalienė.
Tomas Vytautas Raskevičius, head of the Human Rights Committee of the Seimas and representative of the Freedom Party, pointed out that the refusal to provide health services in prisons is related to “possible illegal actions of state officials, concealment of bodily injuries of detainees “.
Alexander Logvinova, spokesman for Sviatlan Cichanouskaya’s coordinating council for the Belarusian opposition leader, said that without providing medical care to the people, “it is being used as an additional means of putting pressure on civil society.”
“Using the global pandemic as a weapon is a common practice in Belarusian prisons. According to the arrest warrants, people infected with the coronavirus were deliberately placed in their cells,” said A. Logvinova.
“The penal system in Belarus is organized in such a way that civilians do not have access to it, all this is based on the fact that the prison system has its own medical service and its doctors are completely dependent on the structures of the force.” . It is an additional tool to intimidate and torture people in cells. Not only is it inhumane, it also allows them to hide their crimes, ”said a representative of the coordination council.
After last year’s presidential elections last August, which the opposition and western democracies consider rigged, Belarus has been rocked for months by unprecedented mass protests. Mr. Lukashenko was declared the winner of that vote and secured for the sixth term.
The Minsk regime has taken brutal measures to suppress the protest movement. More than 35,000 were arrested. people, several protesters were killed and all of Lukashenko’s main opponents were imprisoned or forced to go abroad.
More than 400 protesters were sentenced to severe prison terms. Belarus’ human rights organization Viasna says there are currently more than 500 political prisoners in the country.
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