Andrei Sannikov: I am sure we shall win, and it is to be soon

• 20.05.2011, 13:54

Today Andrei Sannikov, an imprisoned presidential candidate in Belarus, has met with his wife Iryna Khalip in the remand prison in Valadarski Street.

“Andrei was very cheerful and optimistic. I have not seen him for 5 months, I saw him only on a TV screen, when the trial started, and I was under house arrest. It was the only possibility to see my husband. I was watching Euronews channel every half an hour until 2 a.m., the same 2-minute news item. I was stricken by a totally exhausted face of Andrei then. And today I saw an energetic, trim man, who is looking younger, who irradiates optimism and is absolutely sure that we shall win, and it will happen very soon,” Iryna Khalip said to charter97.org website.

“Naturally, I was concerned what happened to him after his statement in the KGB remand prison, and Andrei said there were no penal measures applied. They were probably scared by publicity,” the wife of the political prisoner said,

Andrei Sannikov asked his wife to pass words of gratitude to all who stands by his family, to all journalists and human rights activists, who had been writing, filming, shouting about the events of December 19.

“We both have come to a conclusion that one of the main tasks of the prison is to persuade a person that everyone had forgotten about him. Andrei asked to express gratitude and words of support to “Nasha Niva” and “Narodnaya Volya” newspapers. He didn’t have a possibility to read these newspapers while in prison, but the day before yesterday two back issues of “Narodnaya Volya” and one issue of “Nasha Niva” were given to him for a going-away present,” Iryna Khalip said.

As the presidential candidate assures, his state of health has become stabilized. Surprising as it may seem, incarceration conditions in the remand prison in Valadarski Street turned out to be better than in the KGB jail. So far there are three persons in the cell of Andrei Sannikov, and a wider range of food products could be sent there. There is no information until now to which colony the political prisoner is to be transferred, so he asked to subscribe him for independent newspapers for June.

“I have given best regards to Andrei from all his friends, who wanted to tell words of support to him. But the main thing is that we were able to speak about Danka [Daniil] with him. Most of all Andrei was interested how his son celebrated his birthday, what he was painting and what is the reaction to his fairy-tales. The matter is, in prison Andrei started to write fairy-tales for Danka. These are tales about two friends, two mice, who get into different situations. I assured him that Danka is enchanted by the fairytales, and even started to create fairy-tales for his dad in reply,” Iryna Khalip said.

A meeting of Andrei Sannikov and Iryna Khalip lasted only one hour, the spouses were talking through a glass.