BCD calls to recognize Aleh Surhan prisoner of conscience
- 22.02.2010, 14:27
The organizing committee for creation of the party Belarusian Christian Democracy addressed the world’s human rights organizations.
The BCD calls on the international community to recognize Aleh Surhan, a 47-year old opposition activist from Vitsebsk, prisoner of conscience, BelaPAN reports.
The statement notes that on February 19, the Kastrychnitski district court of Vitsebsk sentenced Surhan to six months in jail for disobedience to militia and obliged him to pay a Br2.5-million fine as compensation for moral damage to militiaman Syarhei Dudkevich.
The incident related to the case took place on September 3, 2009. As Tatsyana Sevyarynets said, Aleh Surhan and his younger brother Taras were detained at a bus stop near Vitsebsk Medical University, where a white-red-white flag was hung out. The report, drawn up in the Kastrychnitski district militia department, said Aleh was accused of hanging out a flag. But later this report disappeared. A new report says Aleh Surhan was drunk in public, used obscene language and bit a militiaman’s finger during the detention.
Surhan claims he was tortured in the militia department, which was recorded during medical examination.
“It’s evident that Surhan has been sentenced not for ‘disobedience to militia’ but for hanging out a national white-red-white flag and his active citizenship. His sentence is a kind of warning to the BCD. The regime hasn’t changed – it still host people and then ‘sells’ their release to Europe,” the statement says.
The organizing committee on the BCD creation calls on Amnesty International and other human rights organizations to recognize Surhan prisoner of conscience. Besides, the committee addressed the Belarusian and international community asking to support campaigns aimed at releasing other political prisoners arrested, as human rights activists believe, on political grounds – Mikalai Autukhovich, Uladzimir Asipenka, Artsyom Dubski, and Ivan Mikhailau.
The statement was signed by co-heads of the organizing committee on creating the BCD party Heorhy Dzmitruk, Vital Rymasheuski, Paval Sevyarynets, and Alyaksei Shein.