Is pressure exerted on Yury Rubtsou’s wife?

• 12.01.2015, 14:43

The political prisoner is worrying about his wife and asks for help.

An opposition activist from Homel, who had been sentenced to a penal colony for wearing a T-shirt “Lukashenka, resign”, told charter97.org that his wife cannot accept what is happening to him, and keeps asking him to stop his resistance.

“My wife is much weaker than me, and in every conversation with me she demands to resign myself with the current authorities, that is, to fall down to my knees and to do everything they say. I would like to influence the situation in some way, to help her. Maybe some phone calls of concerned people will help. I cannot say whether pressure is exerted on her or not. She has a great fear for me, and she is worried. She cannot realize still what I am doing, and why this all had started,” the activist said.

We remind that on October 6, 2014 judge of Central district of Minsk, Natallya Vajtsekhovich, sentenced Rubtsou to a corrective labour penal colony for 2.5 years. The term was reduced by one year after an amnesty. Human rights activists note that the trial over Rubtsou was held with numerous violations, and that the real reason for Rubtsou’s persecution was his political activism. After the verdict was announced, Viasna human rights centre declared Yury Rubtsou a political prisoner.