10-Minute Court Trial Sends Dashkievich to Supermax Jail

Court decided on October 30 to transfer Zmicier Dashkievich to a cell-type correctional institution for the rest of his imprisonment term Nasta Palazhanka, who is engaged to the Chairperson of an opposition youth group called Young Front.

In a trial that took place in Correctional Institution No. 20 in Mazyr, Homiel region. The trial was closed for public.

The judge of the Mazyr District and City Court found Zmicier guilty of persistent violation of prison rules and ordered his transfer to a high-security prison, said Palazhanka, deputy Chairperson of Young Front.

The whereabouts of Zmicier will remain unknown until he arrives at the new prison, Palazhanka said, adding that he was to be removed from the Mazyr prison immediately.

According to her, Dashkievich believes that he will be moved to a prison in either Hrodna or Zhodzina, Minsk region.

Palazhanka stressed that her fiance could not be a persistent violator of prison rules because he had been placed in a disciplinary cell and then in a cell-type room upon arrival at the Mazyr prison.

Earlier this year, former presidential candidate Mikalaj Statkievich and businessman Mikalaj Autukhovich, who are widely viewed as political prisoners, were also transferred to cell-type correctional institutions in punishment for alleged violations of prison rules.

Zmicier Dashkievich, 31, was arrested in Minsk on December 18, 2010, on the eve of a scheduled large-scale post-election demonstration, for allegedly beating up two passers-by.

Speaking during his trial, Dashkievich said that the incident was a provocation orchestrated by authorities and accused the two alleged victims of giving false testimony.

On March 24, 2011, he was sentenced to two years in a minimum-security correctional institution on a charge of “especially malicious hooliganism.”

In September, 2011, he refused an offer of freedom in exchange for asking Aliaksandr Lukashenka for a presidential pardon.

In a closed-door trial held in a prison in the Viciebsk region at the end of August 2012, Dashkievich was found guilty of persistent violation of prison rules under Part One of the Criminal Code`s Article 411 and sentenced to a one-year prison term. The remaining four months of the previously imposed prison term were included in the new term.

According to a prisoners` rights group called Platforma, the administration of Correctional Institution No. 20, where Dashkievich was moved on September 19, subjected him to verbal abuse and threatened to put him in a mental hospital or place him in a disciplinary cell to be sexually abused by other inmates.

Between September 21 and October 5, Dashkievich was on hunger strike in protest against his mistreatment. According to Palazhanka, he ended the strike because the attitude of the prison administration toward him had changed radically and become more respectful.

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