European Commission has been called to interfere and save Andrei Sannikov

• 30.01.2012, 10:20

Marek Migalski, a member of the European Parliament and deputy head of the delegation for relations with Belarus, has addressed the European Commission asking to intervene in the situation of the political prisoners amid alarming news about Belarusian presidential candidate Andrei Sannikov.

The MEP noted in his official letter to the Commission the wife of Andrei Sannikov said at a press conference the politician had been forced to apply to Alyaksandr Lukashenka for a pardon on November 20. Belarusian opposition activists are convinced Sannikov applied for clemency under tortures. According to Iryna Khalip, her husband gave to understand he had received threats in the Mahilou -prison that she and their four-year-old son would be killed. In a prison meeting room, Sannikov showed her a note through the glass barrier, which read: “It’s about my life. I can be killed at any moment.”

The European ambassador reminded it’s not the first report about torture and ill-treatment in Belarusian prisons.

MEP Migalski also sent a letter to the chief of the penal colony in Vitsebsk, where Andrei Sannikov serves his sentence, and to the chief of the Corrections Department at the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Belarus. The MEP called to create proper confinement conditions for Sannikov, investigate the case and bring the people guilty of cruel treatment of political prisoners to responsibility.