Opposition activist Siarhiej Kavalienka has been released from prison, his mother told reporters on Thursday, BelaPAN informs.
Siarhiej Kavalienka left the prison at 20:00 Minsk time and was put on train to Viciebsk, Euroradio says.
In late June, the 37-year-old Viciebsk resident applied for a presidential pardon after coming under pressure from the administration of Correctional Institution No. 19 in Mahiliou.
According to Mr. Kavalienka’s wife, Aliena, the pressure on her husband came to a head while he was staying in a punishment cell for another alleged violation of prison rules, struggling to sleep at night due to a very low temperature inside. During that period, he was visited in his cell several times a day and told to write to Aliaksandr Lukashenka that he repented of his act and viewed it as an act of hooliganism and not a political statement.
The head of the prison once visited Mr. Kavalienka and shamed him for leaving his son to grow up without his father.
Prison administrators later said that no repentance was necessary, and that he should simply write, 'I ask you to pardon me,’ and had no need to write that he repented and admitted his guilt.
Siarhiej Kavalienka, a member of the Conservative Christian Party, was sentenced to a suspended three-year prison sentence in 2010 for putting a white-red-white flag on top of Viciebsk's tallest Christmas tree in early January.
On December 19, 2011, Mr. Kavalienka was arrested at home on a charge of violating probation rules and placed in the Vitsyebsk detention center. He was on hunger strike since his arrest and reportedly lost nearly 40 kilograms of weight.
On February 24, 2012, he was sentenced to two years and one month in prison.
According to information received from Siarhiej Kavalienka, one more prisoner — a person invilved in the “case of anarchists” Paviel Syramalotau who was sentenced to jail for throwing Molotov cocktail in the KGB headquarters in Babrujsk — should have been released on September 26. He applied for the presidential pardon in July, 2012.
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