Alyaksandr Makaeu: “Incarceration conditions in Akrestsin Street could be equated to tortures”
- 17.12.2007, 16:21
One of the applicants for holding the protest rally of market vendors Alyaksandr Makaeu who was detained on December 10 before the rally on October Square, has been released today. “I am breathing the air of freedom, and that’s the most important thing. There is no value higher than freedom. When you are deprived of freedom even for a few days, you understand that keenly,” told Alyaksandr Makaeu to the Charter’97 press-center right after leaving the prison in Akrestsin Street.
As said by A. Makaeu, Viktar Harbachou, another applicant for holding the rally, was placed to the same cell with him. He was sentenced to 15 days of arrest, which was the strictest sentence. And the three persons who were placed to the same ward under administrative charges, were also interesting people, so “there will be something to remember”.
At the same time, A. Makaeu underlines that despite of the fact that it was extremely cold in the cell, the detainees hadn’t been allowed to receive warm clothes and sleeping bags. “When people are punished for some offenses by an administrative arrest, it means they are deprived of freedom, and when cells do not have normal temperature, and at the same time it is forbidden to bring warm things from home, it couldn’t called anything but mockery or torture by cold. Thus we plan to prepare a statement to a respective UN committee,” the leader of market vendors said.
As for a possible dialogue with the authorities, Alyaksandr Makaeu was rather. “There cannot be a dialogue when we are treated like this by the regime. What kind of dialogue could we have when almost all our organizational committee is imprisoned (Kryvul, Kalej, Harbachou). Moreover, I do not know now, for how long I will be at large, a day or two or more. I left the gate of the prison, and people in mufti are videoing me, and I do not even know whether I will get home,” the leader of the entrepreneurs’ movement said.
As we have informed, a public activist Mikola Serhienka has been arrested today for alleged “swearing” at policemen in the Belarusian Congress of Democratic Trade Unions Congress on December 6. Alyaksandr Makaeu was convicted on the same charges.
On December 6 they were in the office of the Belarusian Congress of the Democratic trade unions. Leaflets calling upon businessmen to come to the meeting on October Square were taken to the office before that. Suddenly policemen stormed the office, confiscated the leaflets and took those present to the police department of Leninski district for ideptification.
Later the trial over Alyaksandr Makaeu was rescheduled as he was serving his 7-days arrest at that time for alleged “swearing”. Makaeu was detained on December 10 in the morning before the meeting of market vendors started. He was one of the applicants for holding the rally.
As we have informed, 1,000 market vendors have taken part in the meeting.