Valiery Lievanieuski (Valery Levaneuski) was taken from Ivatsevichy prison to the Republican prison hospital, said Radio Liberty. According to the prisoner’s relations, the heart problems got worse after Lievanieuski had been on hunger-strikes to protest against the violation of his rights.
According to Lievanieuski’s son Uladzimier, “he first started to have problems with the heart and back, but he does not know why. He decided to undergo treatment and get a medical checkup at the same time”.
Ivatsevichy prison confirmed that Lievanieuski had been transferred to Minsk, however, the Minsk prison does not provide any information about the prisoner. They refer to an in-house instruction, which requires provision of a written application before such information can be granted.
Lievanieuski’s relations do not rule it out that several days will pass before Valiery Lievanieuski, who may well be in Baranavichy, reaches the hospital. Prisoners are collected in the isolation ward of this town before they are taken in large groups to other locations. At the start of the year on the way from Mahilou prison to Ivatsevichy prison Valiery Lievanieuski already spent several days in Baranavichy isolation ward. Then he wrote his relations about the bad conditions in this isolation ward. In particular he mentioned lack of necessary medical help.
In the year and a half that Valiery Lievanieuski has spent in prison he declared hunger-strikes on four occasions. That was the method he used to obtain improved conditions and have his complaints considered. The hunger-strike that lasted the longest of all was three weeks. After the last hunger-strike Valiery Lievanieuski ended up in the medical section of the prison, where he was diagnosed with cardiac arrhythmia.
http://spring96.org/be/news/14077/
The additional information
Valery Levaneuski (Russian: Левоневский Валерий Станиславович, Belarusian: Валеры Станіслававіч Леване́ўскі, Polish: Walery Lewoniewski) - Belarussian political and social activist, former political prisoner. Amnesty International recognizes him as a prisoner of conscience
On 7 September 2004, he was sentenced to two years in prison for publicly insulting the president of Belarus (A.Lukashenko). The judge decreed that a leaflet which Levaneuski had distributed prior to demonstrations on 1 May 2004 in particular contained a text:
“come and say that you are against ’somebody’ going on holiday skiing in Austria and having a good time at your cost”
Since Alexander Lukashenko is known to have spent his holidays in Austria, the judge decide that leaflet contains a public insult to the President.
On 16 September 2004 European Parliament calls on the Belarus authorities to release immediately Valery Levaneuski and all other imprisoned political opponents of the regime.
Valery Levaneuski - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Official site (English)
Official site (Russian and English)
Official Site 2 (Russian and English)
