Valiantsin Stephanovich: Government do not intend to release political prisoners

• 13.03.2015, 15:03

Political prisoners will unlikely be released soon.

Valiantsin Stephanovich, Deputy Head of the Viasna Human Right Center, believes that Belarusian government will unlikely release political prisoners, Radio Racyja reports.

The last case of political prisoner Mikalai Dziadok is quite significant. He served his previous sentence, but 3 days before the release he was repeatedly sentenced to an additional year and 3 days for allegedly malicious disobedience to requirements of the administration. It's quite significant, the civil right activist believes.

–Conviction of Mikalai Dziadok happened against the background of all these visits of foreign high-ranking officials to Belarus. It seems to me it was not accidental because, in a sense, it was a signal of Belarusian authorities that they did not plan to resolve the issue of political prisoners in the near future as maintenance of stability, destabilization prevention are much more important than relations with the West.

I wish I were mistaken, but other political prisoners unlikely to be released soon. The task of the Belarusian Foreign Ministry is to make the West accept Belarus as it is, without any conditions and moral teachings. The position of official Minsk concerning events in Ukraine is successfully converted not only within Belarus, but in West. And we can observe it, Valiantsin Stephanovich believes.