Bandarenka taken from hospital by unknown plainclothes men

• 25.07.2011, 9:40

The political prisoner was to be taken to Minsk’s hospital No 5 from the prison hospital for an operation.

People gathered near the hospital to express their solidarity with the coordinator of European Belarus civil campaign, who is under threat of an involuntary surgery.

As charter97.org website learnt from Volha Bandarenka, the wife of the political prisoner, he was taken to the reception ward under guard. Then an unknown man in mufti demanded that Volha Bandarenka called on people to leave the hospital building, otherwise “Bandarenka will be taken back”.

Volha Bandarenka could not do anything in this situation. She explained that people came to show solidarity with the political prisoner. As a result, when medical personnel began to fill in admission forms, the man in mufti said: “Stop doing this!” and her husband was taken away, Volha Bandarenka says.

We remind that Due to serious problems with his spinal column (herniated intervertebral disks, spinal nerve entrapments, leg paresis) coordinator of European Belarus civil campaign Zmitser Bandarenka was transferred from the remand prison of the Interior Affairs Ministry to the Republican Prison Hospital, which is situated in the same place, in Valadarski Street in Minsk. Bandarenka was recently told that he should either go to a minimum security penal colony for 2 years for participating in a demonstration on December 19 or undergo an operation. He was denied a consultation of a neurosurgeon. The operation is scheduled for July 26.