Updated at 17:53,27-03-2024

Imprisoned ex-presidential candidate still meets pressure

Belsat

Prison officers keep talking Mikalai Statkevich into taking "a man's decision" and asking President Lukashenka for mercy. At the same time the conditions of confinement are worsening.

These latter days his wife Maryna Adamovich has received five letters, all at once. "There was a delay and I got no letters from him. A prison censor must have been on holiday," she told Belsat TV.

According to imprisoned politician, the administration gives him no peace insisting on filing a petition for pardon to the current president. "During the morning round one of the department heads said: "It's high time you stopped playing cowboys and Indians and took a decision. You've served enough." I recommended him to mind his own business and not to interfere in the spheres which are beyond his competence. But the department head told me again that it was high time I had taken 'a man's decision'. I told him that I did make a man's decision long time ago. This was a queer, illegal and inappropriate offer. By the way, I quote my words in a brief and censored way. Taking into account the background of such "offers" I should expect a reprimand or something else. But I wonder why these people couldn't realize that they won't see me writing a petition," the political prisoner writes to the wife.

Statkevich is glad that opposition is preparing for the oncoming presidential election. "It is a pleasant fact that politicians started to withdraw from boycotting in favour of participation in the presidential campaign, some intending to become a single candidate. But we should not ignore calls of the situation; for example, poodles are believed to be very smart dogs. There can also be brave dogs among them But it is the wolfhounds that should be sey against wolves, not poodles," Mikalai Statkevich stresses.