Andrei Tsyanyuta: “Prison guards addressed us politely and talked almost in whispers”

• 2.04.2008, 11:35

“Prison guards addressed us politely and almost in whispers,” told Andrei Tsyanyuta, an activist of the Young Front and a member of the organising committee of the Belarusian Christian Democracy (BCD), about the 10-day detention in a remand prison of Homel, where he was able even to use a phone (!).

An editor of the internet-resource of the BCD interviewed him after his release.

- Andrei, you calls from the remand prison surprised everyone. Please tell us how you have managed that. Where did you find the phone?

- We successfully insisted on an opportunity to use the phone after numerous appeals of human rights activists and my mother. It is possible to phone from a public pay telephone if you have a card. In order to call anywhere, you should write an application beforehand, stating the number of the telephone. And they may allow the prisoner to make a call or not.

- Have you been allowed to call Paval Sevyarynets?

- No, it happened unintentionally. I wrote the phone number of my mother in the application, and when I went to the telephone, nobody watched me, so I used that possibility.

- Has the attitude of remand prison workers towards prisoners changed?

- Yes, the attitude of policemen has undoubtedly changed: it was very rude previously, they even could beat you up, and now everything is different, at least, in Homel the attitude has changed. Prison guards addressed us politely, “youed” us, and talked almost in whispers.

- How do you think, where what these changes could be coming from?

- I think it is connected with the fact that most detainees were dissatisfied with conditions of detention and many of them wrote complaints… We should compel them to improve conditions in Minsk to be improved as well!